Rising costs on several jobs significant, M&E contractor admits, as firm introduces hardship fund to help staff with cost of living
Losses on fixed price jobs and a near £7m hit on its investment in failed battery manufacturer Britishvolt sent NG Bailey tumbling into the red last year with the firm racking up a £25m pre-tax loss.
The firm lost £6.8m on its investment in Britishvolt, the firm start-up that was planning to build a new battery plant in Northumberland but which sank into administration at the start of the year.
And it said a “small number of engineering fixed price contract, which have suffered from unprecedented inflationary pressures, delays and some supply chain failures, have cost the business significantly”.
It said the impact on its cash position of these jobs, which it declined to name, were now “largely behind us”
The problems meant the firm, which has now filed its accounts at Companies House, fell to a £25m pre-tax loss in the year to 3 March from a £3m profit last time. Revenue was up 6% to £532m.
It said that it was taking more time to weigh up whether to bid for jobs or not and added: “We are being cautious in our growth plans to ensure we don’t take on significant risk. Our ‘bid no bid’, estimation and procurement processes have been tightened and are highly selective to ensure we win work at margins commensurate with the risk.”
The firm said this year’s annual pay rise had been weighted towards lower paid workers and it had introduced a hardship fund to support hard up staff with grants or wage advances. It has also introduced a staff discount scheme on day-to-day expenses.
NG Bailey’s order book at the year-end stood at £1.3bn, a rise of £100,000 on last time, with net cash and investments up to £83m, from £79m.
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