Manchester Science Parks trebles profits

MANCHESTER Science Parks (MSP) grew income and trebled pre-tax profits last year.

In its annual report MSP, which operates four business parks around Manchester, said turnover increased by 3% to £3.1m during 2010 and pre-tax profits jumped to £721,000 from £275,000.

The performance, helped by maintaining occupancy levels and cutting overheads, has given the business the confidence to push ahead with an £18m expansion plan that will see it more than double the size of office space at its main 180,000 sq ft campus.

Founded in 1983, MSP is owned by Manchester City Council, the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and five smaller shareholders: Ciba Speciality Chemicals, ITV, NatWest, Pochin’s and Quiros.

In her report chief executive Jane Davies said the ability of her major shareholders to back the expansion plans had been “severely limited” by the public spending cuts. MSP is now hoping to turn the heads of institutional investors, such as pension funds, looking for safe and steady returns. The first 100,000 sq ft of extra space should be completed in 2013/14.

It has 135 tenants with more than half of these – 85 – based at the main ‘corridor’ site on Lloyd Street North behind the University of Manchester. The others are spread across 158,000 sq ft at Salford Innovation Park, One Central Park in Newton Heath and the Technopark in Hulme. It ended the year with an occupancy rate of 89%.

Ms Davies said: “In 2010, many companies, MSP included, began the trading year in a mixture of hope and trepidation that a focus on cost reduction and concentration on core strengths would deliver a positive result for the business despite the tentative economic recovery.

“Fortunately, judging by the positive information on growth, turnover and new products or services taken to market in our annual tenant survey, this hope was not without reason and we have highlighted some key successes in the review.

“As for MSP, we focused on costs and identified savings in all areas across the business whilst making a determined effort to improve services. This has worked well with our customer satisfaction rating also improving and we are confident that the business is in a good place from which to implement further expansion in the next five years.”

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