Revenue grew 12% to £2,192.6m (2012: £1,958.4m). More than half of this – £1.3bn – came from the growing support services business, which is set to grow by another £500m a year with the proposed acquisition of Initial Facilities, also announced today. (See report here.)
Construction contributed £802.2m to group revenue, up 9% from £737.2m the previous year, with £169.6m coming from equipment services (RMD Kwikform), up 1.3%.
Although reported group pre-tax profit was down 62% to £68.1m, 2012’s figure of £179.8m included a one-off gain of £114.9m on the disposal of the majority of the PFI portfolio. Setting this aside, pre-tax profit was up 5%.
Profits from UK construction activities held firm at £14.7m (2012: £14.6m) although profits from international construction were down a shade at £13.1m (2012: £14.3m).
Last year saw Interserve withdraw from India, which had failed to meet expectations, adding a £5.1m exceptional charge to the accounts.
Chief executive Adrian Ringrose said: "2013 has been another good year for the business, and despite challenging conditions in many of our markets, we delivered substantial growth in both revenue and headline profit, and made important strategic progress. Our focus on delivering the best possible service to our clients has resulted in strong work-winning in the year, from both new and existing customers, maintaining our record future workload at £6.4bn.
"In our UK Support Services business we delivered our medium term objective of finishing the year with margins of 5%. Our Construction division remained resilient and Equipment Services delivered strong results, while continuing to expand into new markets.
"We also completed a number of important acquisitions, further extending our capabilities in key areas for growth, both in the UK and the Middle East.
"We have confidence in the continued growth potential of the business, which is reflected by our proposed acquisition of Initial Facilities. The acquisition of such a complementary business allows us to deliver further against our growth strategy."
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