2014 brings more opportunity to Henry Boot
HENRY Boot is confident it will be doing more property development this year than it has in the past five.
As the economy sees signs of improvement, the South Yorkshire-based construction and development group, said it has a number of schemes it hopes to work on and complete this year. These include its work in partnership with Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust for the specialist fit out work to create a new dedicated 50,000 sq ft office and out-patients facility, which it expects to complete in 2015.
Henry Boot announced this week that it anticipates pre-tax profits to be approximately 10% ahead of management’s expectations when it reports its full year results for the year to the end of December 2013 next month. This would result in a 30% rise from the previous year.
Finance director, John Sutcliffe, said: “We are looking forward to 2014 – it looks like it is going to be a pretty good year.
“The land management side of the business has never been in better shape. The sites will start to come to the market this year and the underlying position for the land management business is very strong.
“The construction business has good order book for the rest of the year, too.”
The 125-year old family firm has a number of divisions – Stonebridge, a residential property development specialist, Hallam Land Management, Henry Boot Constructions, Banner Plant and it also operates the A69 road between Newcastle and Carlisle.
Last year it was announced that Sheffield-headquartered Henry Boot and David Wilson Homes had bought the Chocolate Works site in York. Earlier this month, York-based David Wilson Homes Yorkshire East moved swiftly to begin the re-development of the former site which has laid derelict since 2005.
Henry Boot Developments is redeveloping the commercial sector and the listed factory buildings as part of a major commercial property scheme.
Mr Sutcliffe said: “Nothing is signed yet but if the discussions carry on like they have done – very positively – we will hopefully be on site at the end of the third quarter this year.
“This is a very exciting scheme. We bought the site very competitively and it one of our key projects.”
Mr Sutcliffe added that it is now important for businesses to take advantage of the improving economy.
“The middle of 2012 was a real turning point for us. 2010 and 2011 were really difficult but by the second half of 2012, people had turned the light on and we saw some definite signs of improvement. This carried on into 2013 so 2014 should be even better,” he said.
“We are now in a cycle of not massive recovery, but steady improvement. It looks like 2014 will pull a lot of businesses along and people have got to take advantage of this. The cycles don’t last forever.
“At Henry Boot, we have got a lot of opportunities now.”
