Tilbury Douglas returned to profitability in 2023 amid a 25 per cent jump in turnover, according to the group’s latest set of audited accounts.
Revenue from the contractor’s building, infrastructure and engineering projects reached £507.2m compared with £405.2m the previous year.
It also won £533m of new contracts in 2023, and its order book totalled more than £1bn by the end of the year.
“This means that 100 per cent of its budgeted revenue for 2024 will come from work it had already won, before 2024 started, although other short-term new work may complement this,” Tilbury Douglas said in a statement this morning.
The firm’s pre-tax profit of £5.8m contrasted starkly with its 2022 performance, when it reported a £94m pre-tax loss due to legacy costs associated with its separation from Interserve Group.
Tilbury Douglas’ construction arm was ranked the 43rd largest UK contractor in the CN100 2023 table.
The group accounts did not give a detailed profit breakdown by division. However, chief executive Paul Gandy said that both of the group’s operating companies, Tilbury Douglas Construction Ltd and Tilbury Douglas Engineering Ltd, posted a profit last year.
Building work accounted for most of Tilbury Douglas’ revenue at £331.2m, helped by places on frameworks such as the Southern Construction Framework and Northwest Construction Hub.
Chief operating officer Craig Tatton said that £413m of new construction contracts were won last year.
Fit-out accounted for £76.1m of revenue, behind infrastructure (£85.5m), which experienced what Tatton described as a “challenging year”.
Tilbury Douglas will now focus on regulated industry frameworks, he added. Wins in 2023 included the South West Water Tier 1 Delivery Partners Framework and a renewal of the Thames Water AMP7 framework.
No dividends were paid in the year.
Staff wages rose by 13 per cent to £77.4m, which partly reflected an increase in headcount from 1,155 to 1,227 employees.
The group is debt-free and its improved financial performance in 2023 helped to almost quadruple its cash position. Tilbury Douglas finished the year with £42.3m at bank and in hand, compared with £11.5m at the end of 2022.
“Our group has now successfully completed more than £900m of contracts since separation from the Interserve Group in May 2022 to date and won more than £1.2bn of new work in that time,” said chair Nick Pollard.
Tilbury Douglas also reported a profitable first quarter (Q1) of 2024 with turnover exceeding £150m “and a continuing strong cash performance”.
It added that more than £172m of new contracts were booked in Q1, bringing the total order book to £1.3bn by the end of March.
