Infrastructure contractor Eurovia UK has increased both profits and turnover, according to its latest annual financial results.
The subsidiary of French construction giant Vinci reported a pre-tax profit of £37.5m for the 2022 calendar year, up 39.6 per cent on 2022 (£26.9m of pounds) and almost double the 2019 figure of 19.2 million pounds.
Turnover including joint ventures (JVs) also grew, reaching £912.1m last year, up 8.7% from 2021 and almost a third from 2018. Excluding joint ventures, revenue grew 9.7% to £693.4m.
In a 15-page statement with the accounts, chief executive Scott Wardrop said the “resilient financial performance” was “very testament to our people and teams”.
The growth was driven by its forward services road infrastructure business which operated throughout the pandemic, it added. Eurovia’s Ringway brand, which provides motorway management services for local and national bodies, increased its turnover by 7.1% last year to £394.6m.
North of the border, Bear Scotland, a road design and management joint venture involving Eurovia, Jacobs and Breedon Northern, increased revenue by 8 per cent to £225m, although profit earlier of tax dropped to £4.5m in 2022, below the border. 6.7 million the previous year.
Another partnership, Ringway Jacobs, saw a smaller fall in turnover to £264m and a drop in pre-tax profit to £7m, but an overall increase in its pre-tax profit margin .
Commercial business unit Wight Building Materials (a JV with Aggregate Industries) suffered an 8.6% drop in revenue to £8m and made a pre-tax profit of just £200,000, with Eurovia stating that the pandemic altered market conditions.
The average number of employees at Eurovia UK fell by 3% to 2,799 last year, while total staff wages were almost flat at £133.4m.
“We expect that in the next 10 years we will see major challenges due to climate change … along with exponential growth in digitization,” Wardrop said.
“We strongly believe that our industry must work collaboratively with all stakeholders and avoid any risk of greenwashing by over-promising net zero. We prefer to work together to over-deliver through sustained and relentless innovation and a constructive challenge”.
