黑洞社区

Sir Robert McAlpine is targeting expansion into civils and growing its public sector work after posting another heavy loss for 2015.

The heavyweight contractor posted a pre-tax loss of 拢52.2m for the year to October 2015, slightly reduced from its 拢54.8m loss the previous year. Revenue dropped to 拢782.1m, down from just over 拢1bn.

Sir Robert McAlpine blamed the latest loss on a 鈥渟mall number of legacy contracts鈥� won during the recession which 鈥渄eteriorated further鈥� over the year.

But the firm said the worst performing of these jobs had now completed or were 鈥渧ery close鈥� to completing, and consequently the firm was 鈥渃onfident鈥� the construction business would return to profit in 2016.

The firm, under its first ever chief executive Tony Aikenhead, who took on the role in November, is rolling out a new strategy targeting expansion into civil engineering and expanding the firm鈥檚 public sector and frameworks work.

The firm has launched a civil engineering business with the aim of supplying 20% of its turnover by 2019.

The contractor is shortlisted for four packages of civils work for HS2 as part of its Align joint venture with Bouygues and VolkerFitzpatrick.

Sir Robert McAlpine expects turnover overall to grow, supported by growing the proportion of workload it gains from frameworks and the public sector.

In response to the hot market in central London, the firm is backing out of the high-end residential market and said it 鈥渨ill no longer enter into fixed price contracts in the residential fit-out subsector鈥�.

Aikenhead said: Tony Aikenhead, Chief Executive of Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, said, 鈥淚 am very positive about our future prospects and I look forward to the business returning to profitability in 2016.

鈥淚 am confident that, alongside our continued focus on our clients, our new strategy combined with a firm focus on productivity, engineering excellence and first class delivery will have significant impact as we continue to realise our company vision of 鈥楶roudly 黑洞社区 Britain鈥檚 Future Heritage鈥欌��.