Improvements in Australia and emerging markets, however, helped the company increase its global revenues by 3% to £1,068.9m. Keller’s strategy of geographic diversification has seen the proportion of revenue coming from Australia and developing markets increase from 13% five years ago to 38% of 2010.
Globally, the order book is up 13% on last year.
Market conditions in the UK continued to be "very challenging", Keller said, particularly in the housing and commercial sectors, which have historically accounted for much of company’s UK revenue. Two rounds of redundancies and restructuring, at a cost of £1.0m, were not enough to prevent an operating loss of £2.5m for the UK business (2009: profit £500,000) on revenue down 14% to £49.6m (2009: £57.6m).
Over the last year, UK management has repositioned the business to focus more on civil engineering work, reducing its reliance on the depressed housing and commercial sectors. The strategy is starting to yield benefits, the company said, with a major piling contract at London's Tottenham Court Road tube station, which is a precursor to the Crossrail project and continues into 2011. The business has also begun its early involvement in the provision of specialist geotechnical and monitoring services for sections of the tunnelling works for the Crossrail project, which will employ the Getec monitoring systems developed by Keller in Germany and recently introduced into the UK. This, together with substantial work as part of the upgrade of London's Victoria Railway Station, is due to start in the second half of 2011.
Keller chief executive Justin Atkinson said: "Keller faced many challenges in 2010, particularly in the US and much of Western Europe, where construction markets remained depressed. However, our combination of strengths, including the breadth of our product offering, excellent operational capabilities and a strong balance sheet to support our ambitions, have served us well in the past and will underpin our delivery of sustained long-term growth in the future."
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
