Grimshaw profit reaches £1m for the first time

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Architect follows Rogers and Wilkinson Eyre in posting strong results for 2006

Grimshaw Architects has filed its best financial results, drawing to a close recent falls in profit in its UK business.

The firm’s pre-tax profit for the year ending October 2006 was £1m, the first time it has passed seven figures. This represented a 42% rise on the same period last year.

This compared with a 58% drop for the year ending October 2004, when UK pre-tax profit came in at £132,000.

Grimshaw is the latest in a long line of architecture firms to register strong profits this year.

In May, Rogers’ Stirk Harbour + Partners filed the best set of results in its 30-year history with a £1.3m pre-tax profit, while Wilkinson Eyre’s latest results showed a £3.15m pre-tax profit, an increase of 400%.

Grimshaw’s results will be welcomed by the firm, which has recently been restructured to form a limited liability partnership and renamed Grimshaw Architects.

Pre-tax profit at the firm passed £1m for the first time, a rise of 42% on last year

To coincide with the restructure the company sold its office in Fitzrovia, west London in January for £6.2m and moved to Clerkenwell in east London.

The architect recently walked away with the RIBA Lubetkin prize, which was awarded to the best project outside the EU, for Southern Cross station in Melbourne, Australia. The practice is working on the £400m Nirah aquatics centre in Bedfordshire, which is being touted as Britain’s next Eden Project, as well as a second runway and terminal at Stansted airport in Essex.

Turnover is also strong, up 22% to £9m for the period ending October 2006, compared to £7.4m for the same period last year. A geographical breakdown revealed that while turnover increased in the UK for the year ending October 2006, it decreased slightly in Europe and dropped considerably in North and South America. The practice employs 69 architects, up from 55 last year.

The company’s financial results for operations in the United States were not available as Building went to press.

Nobody at Grimshaw was available to comment.