National construction company nmcn has announced its half yearly financial results today – with a slight decrease in revenue to £181.6 million compared to £184.0 million the same period last year.
Despite a strong start to 2020, cOVID-19 and operational challenges impacted the business in the second quarter.
Profit before tax for the six-month period ending June 30 2020 was £0.8 million, with cash of £15.8 million. Its solid order book for completion in 2020 is circa £350 million (compared to circa £356 million for the previous year).
The firm saw revenue increase by 3.7% in Q1 to £97.9 million and pre-tax profit was up by 5.9% to £1.8 million. However, during Q2 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic site shut-downs, productivity constraints, changes in working methodology, and prolongation of contracts impacted profits.
All of nmcn’s sites are now fully active and working at COVID-19 compliant production capacity and the current order book stands at 93% of expected full year revenue.
Positively, the Built Environment segment saw significant growth in revenue increase of 19.1%. The Telecoms business unit continued to perform well in the first half of 2020 and has secured the Virgin Media Morpheus frameworks in two operating regions and further works for British Telecom.
As anticipated, there has been a reduction in revenue for the Water segment during the AMP transition year, from £132.1 million in 2019 to £119.8 million. During the period, nmcn has been successful in securing new strategic frameworks with Anglian Water, the Coal Authority and a number of frameworks in asset security works for public sector bodies.
John Homer, chief executive officer of nmcn, said: “The first half of 2020 comprised two very different quarterly trading periods. We started the year well, with the financial results reflecting an encouraging order book and the benefit of a number of our initiatives. In the second quarter we faced the immediate challenges of COVID-19 with the suspension of projects and the disruptive impact of new operating requirements and these were compounded by some other operational issues. In overall terms, I am delighted to be reporting a profitable result for the period which we believe further demonstrates the value of our business model and dedication and capabilities of our teams.
“We have sought to protect the health and wellbeing of all our stakeholders and I am deeply proud of the manner in which our entire staff has responded to the challenges of maintaining activity in critical areas and re-launching projects that have been suspended. This is a strong demonstration of our people as an overarching differentiator.
“In the longer term, the attractions and opportunities of our addressable markets remain. In the near-term, we are likely to continue to endure the constraints of a coronavirus environment but with a healthy order book and strong fundamental growth drivers and opportunities within our addressable markets, we believe the business will continue to progress.”