Dispute group drives profits

CONFIDENCE and work in the construction industry may be drying up, but it seems that disputes are still rising with the Driver Group revealing record profits.

The Manchester-based firm, which provide commercial and dispute resolution services to the construction and engineering industries, today revealed a 43% hike in revenue to £18.5m. Pre-tax profits before exceptional charges were up by 31% to £2.08m.

Driver Group said that its performance has been boosted by strong performances in the UK and the Middle East, and while the residential and commercial property sectors of the UK construction industry experienced a severe downturn over the year, it has experienced good demand in the public, civil engineering, energy and transport sectors.

Chairman Michael Davies said the group continues to make very good progress. He said: “These excellent results reflect the benefit of the major recruitment programme we undertook in 2007 to increase our fee-earning capability, as well as continuing strong demand for our specialist services, particularly in the southern offices of the UK, especially London, and in the Middle East, where we have now opened our third office.

“Driver’s specialist service offering and its reach across the many different sub-sectors of the construction and engineering industries means that it is robustly placed to continue to grow revenue and profitability.”

In early trading, shares in Driver Group were up 6.5% to 73.5p.