Morgan Sindall Group plc, the construction and regeneration group, has a £3.6bn forward order book in place and said it is “well positioned to meet the challenges and opportunities in 2011 and beyond.”
In a trading update issued to the Stock Exchange this morning, the company said it remained on track to achieve its expectations for the current year and to record full-year profits in-line with its half-year performance. However, half-year pre-tax profits of £23.1m are down three per cent on 2009, with revenues of £0.98bn down 14 per cent from £1.14bn in 2009.
The company’s newly merged core Construction & Infrastructure division is reported for the first time on a combined basis. The division made an underlying operating profit of £12.2m (2009: £15.0m) on revenue of £612m (2009: £797m). The Group said revenue was down due to a slight fall in demand for construction services, delays in the procurement of major infrastructure projects and the impact of the transition between regulatory periods in the utility services sector i.e. the AMP5 slowdown.
Morgan Sindall merged its construction and infrastructure activities to create a more integrated service for clients who procure both civil engineering and building work. The division now encompasses a full service capability from design, through delivery of complex construction and civil engineering projects, to maintenance of infrastructure assets.
The company said that during the first half of the year the division had been successful in converting all of its preferred bidder opportunities (£0.9bn) across a number sectors brought forward at the start of the year. The division acconts for over 50% of the Group’s total forward order book. In the water sector this includes the Lee Tunnel project for Thames Water (valued at £209m to the Group) and a framework with Yorkshire Water under AMP5 (£60m).
However, despite the fact that the company currently has a “reasonable pipeline of construction opportunities” and a number of large infrastructure projects it said the outlook for the division remains challenging. The forward order book at 30 June 2010 was £2.1bn (2009: £2.1bn), an increase of £0.5bn since the start of the year, with broadly the same balance between the Construction (£0.6bn) and Infrastructure (£1.5bn) elements of the forward order book.
Morgan Sindall will announce its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2010 in late February 2011.
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