The revenue increase to £153.8m (2012: £103.1m) was attributed mainly to the sale of development sites in York and Bromley.
Pre-tax profit was £18.4m (2012: £13.4m).
A highlight of the year was the purchase of the former Terry's Chocolate Factory in York. Approximately half of the 27-acre site was immediately sold to house-builder Barratt Developments. The remaining 230,000 sq ft of listed factory buildings, 4.5 acres of cleared development land and 23 acres of greenbelt was retained by Henry Boot, which has since got planning permission for a mixed-use scheme including residential, office and leisure uses. Construction is set to start on this in the autumn.
Henry Boot’s pipeline also includes a couple of budget hotels, set to start construction this spring: a 76-room Travelodge in Richmond upon Thames and a 67-room Premier Inn.
Henry Boot Construction has recently been awarded a major contract to redevelop Stocksbridge town centre for the Stocksbridge Regeneration Company. This contract comprises retail, commercial and associated civil engineering works and is scheduled for completion in 2016.
The Ministry of Justice framework is also providing new build and refurbishment opportunities in prisons and courts in the north of England. “After a slow start we are starting to see an encouraging number of opportunities and anticipate that this will continue over the remaining five years of the framework,” the company said.
The civil engineering division also reports steady growth, completing contracts for a new Lytag Process Plant at Drax Power Station for Fairport Engineering, and a new rail unloading and asphalt production plant for Aggregate Industries in Sheffield.
It has also started works at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham to provide a new compound for BOC to increase the hospital's oxygen supply, and at Yorkshire Water’s Lindholme water treatment works for Byzak.
Henry Boot’s mixed-use leisure and office scheme on Deansgate, Manchester was completed in December 2013. Despite protracted delays to the construction programme, the scheme remained on budget, the company said.
“Whilst the marketplace has remained challenging during 2013, Henry Boot Construction Limited has achieved both targeted activity and profit margins,” the company said. “We are also confident that our budgeted profit and turnover levels will be maintained after carrying a substantial order book into 2014.”
The company also reported that its plant hire subsidiary, Banner Plant, grew 12% and had its best year since 2005. (See separate report here.)
Chairman John Brown said: "Henry Boot has performed very well in 2013 and I am really pleased to report on another year of strong progress across the businesses within the group.
"Our business model looks to parts of our business to generate relatively stable, recurring income flows (property investment and construction segment) and parts (land promotion and property development) that are cyclical, deal driven businesses which potentially offer increased returns for higher risk. We have invested more heavily in these higher risk businesses over the last three years with the result that, as we move into 2014, we have an unprecedented number of profitable land and property development sites to work on.
"The new financial year has started well and house builders reporting so far in 2014 are painting an encouraging picture of increasing activity, good land availability and slowly rising prices. Add to that a stronger market for new property development and improving construction and plant activity levels and, provided that these trends continue, we remain confident that we can perform well in 2014 and beyond."
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