Civil engineering contractor Barhale’s annual bank interest charges have increased from £280,000 to £401,000 in the past year.
The target now is to eliminate all borrowing by December 2024 when its existing asset based lending facility is due for renewal, the company disclosed in its annual report.
For the year to 30th June 2023, Barhale Holdings reported turnover up 22% at £133.1m (2022: £109.0m) and pre-tax profit up 40% at £3.1m (2022 £2.2m).
Most of the revenue (£125m) came from contracting services, with £8m from the sale and hire of construction plant and consumables.
Executive director Andy Flowerday said the revenue growth was down to long-term water industry framework contracts starting to move into action.
“By continuing to adhere to our strategy of focusing on our core capabilities and working collaboratively with our long-term clients, we were able to deliver a profit in line with expectations and in line with our strategic plan,” he writes in the annual report. “This was achieved despite a challenging economic background of rising construction costs and an overheated labour market.”
Andy Flowerday continued: “Construction costs, and particular steel and aggregate prices, seem to be stabilising and labour rates less influence by the exceptional demand of large UK infrastructure projects such as HS2.”
At 30th June 2023 the group had net cash of £3.9, compared to £3.0m a year before. The order book stood at £886m.
Chief executive Martin Brown said: “Our strategy is founded on sustainable growth, profitability and alignment with our customers’ critical success factors,” he said. “After successfully achieving our year one goals of introducing new systems and processes, the primary focus in year two was to make sure they were fully embedded and to make significant investments in our people and plant.
"We have met our 4% PBIT target and continuing to maintain and build our long-term relationships with our client base. This has translated into a very strong current order book of £886m.
“Creating financial headroom, together with the successful delivery of our year two objectives, provides the platform for us to continue to reinvest in the business and marks another important step towards realising our five year growth aims.”
Martin Brown highlighted Barhale’s capital expenditure programme which has earmarked £8m for investment in plant and machinery and the continued innovation demonstrated by the business.
“Safety remains our number one priority and the interface between our people and our plant is a key risk area,” he said. “In support of this we invested £250k in AI-supported human form recognition (HFR) technology.
“Over the coming year, we will continue to invest in our people, align our targets and objectives with our customers’ needs and further increase focus on cost management, engineering assurance and programme management.
“In a challenging construction sector which has faced rising prices and significant competition for labour, my team has worked diligently and relentlessly to ensure that we delivered our business plan. The results this year are testament to their efforts.”
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