Crummock profits down as contracts are delayed

CRUMMOCK Holdings, the civil engineering and road surfacing firm, has highlighted delays in receiving large contracts as profits dropped to £366,076, from £570,657 in its financial year.

The Bonnyrigg company saw its revenue grow 38 per cent to £23m in the year to March 31 but margins were squeezed to 8.1 per cent from 10.5 per cent the previous year as it kept its order book full with smaller contracts.

Writing in accounts newly filed at Companies House, Derek Hogg commented: “The sudden release of delayed orders later in the year came on top of a relatively full order book and stretched our resources at a time when there was a shortage of suitable skilled staff seeking employment.”

The company added it had now overcome this challenge and that by August 2016 it had secured the year’s budgeted workload. Mr Hogg therefore predicted a “modest increase” in turnover, with margins set to return to previous levels.

The company operates across civil engineering, surfacing, offshore oil and gas and the design, installation and maintenance of synthetic sports pitches. It reported a 42 per cent fall in work in the oil and gas sector, and added it did not expect the demand for work in the sector to increase in the short term.

In recent years the firm’s overseas work has been in decline, from almost £1m in 2012 (which represented seven per cent of turnover) to £300,000 last year (1.3 per cent of total turnover).

In spite of this, Mr Hogg said the biggest risk to the business was the “continuing reduction in local government budgets … and the absence of contracts being released by the Scottish Government”.