New-build poses 'challenge' for Rok

Rok has said that it expects the new-build market to remain challenging in the coming year but that its change in business mix is mitigating the impact.

It also said its maintenance operations continue to perform well.

In a trading update it said performance for the year to 31 December 2009 is expected to be in line with its expectations.

It added that the market for response maintenance services is largely unaffected by the current economic climate and it continues to gain new customers and take an increased share of existing customers' spend.

The planned maintenance services have performed in line with expectations with margins remaining healthy.

Social housing improvement, where the firm is active on 38 frameworks across the UK, remains a strong market and it has a significant order book ahead for repair and maintenance work.

New-build remains challenging and the expected cut backs in public sector capital spend will exacerbate this in 2010 says the company.

Rok scaled back on activities in this area in 2009 but is still active on 35 social housing frameworks and has also been appointed as the preferred service provider as part of the Inspiral Consortium on the Oldham Gateway's Private Finance Initiative.

This project is expected to be worth £110m in new build, planned repairs and response maintenance over 25 years.

Rok will be announcing its preliminary results on 9 March 2010.