Nobles Construction shows solid performance
LIVERPOOL-based construction firm Nobles has reported a turnover of £14m for 2009 and said that despite competitive pressure from larger players it is on target to do even better in 2010.
The firm has seen turnover double over the last four years to £14m for the year to the end of March 2009. And it is likely to beat that performance in its current financial year, director Peter Linford told TheBusinessDesk.
He said: “We have work secured to the end of the year that means we will hit £14m, so anything else we win and do now will up that figure.
“There are one or two projects that could deliver another £1-2m, so potentially we could do £16m this year.”
The company, which employs 48 staff and has not made any redundancies during the recession, turned a profit despite these pressures in 2009, and will again this year, although Mr Linford admitted profits had been dinted compared to previous years.
“If we can continue to keep doing what we have been doing we are in a strong position to ride the recession out. It is true that the construction industry is the first to be hit and the last to recover,” he added.
Despite the company’s strong progress in a tough year, Mr Linford said there had been a considerable squeeze on margins and that competitive tendering had become “cut throat”.
“As we’ve grown and been going for bigger jobs we are up against the big boys more. We have leaner overheads and cost bases but we don’t have the same financial power as them,” he said.
Currently, around 85% of the firm’s work comes from the public sector.
“The ideal blend for me would be 50/50, but that’s when banks are lending money for projects. I think the split we’ve got is about right for this economy,” said Mr Linford.
Mr Linford added that larger players were increasingly “coming down to our market” and pitching for jobs at the £3/4m level they would previously have ignored.
“They can demonstrate a track record in the health and education sectors with case studies of £30/40m jobs,” he said.
The firm has just picked up a couple of contracts restoring and refurbishing period properties at Dunham Massey for the National Trust, an area that requires specialist expertise.
Mr Linford said the job harks back to when the company started out 15 years ago when it secured “lots of technically difficult work” that other contractors steered away from.
“We did a lot of them and got a reputation for technically difficult works,” he said. “With the climate as it is we’ve got to look to our areas of strength and specialism.”
