Pascall & Watson flies high with bumper results

Stansted Airport expansion architect Pascall & Watson saw profit and turnover soar last year as the transport specialist cashed in on growing demand from across the Middle East.

The firm, whose plans for a £130m arrivals building at the Essex airport were given the green light last week, said pre-tax profit for 2016 was up to £2.6m from the £135,000 recorded in the eight months to December 2015.

And revenue soared to £20m from £7.8m with the company saying that pro rata turnover increased by 70%.

It said “[the] most significant growth [came from] our Abu Dhabi office” with new schemes in the Gulf emirate including a Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s store, a hotel along with work on the Expo 2020 Pavilion. In the UK, the firm is working on 13 Crossrail stations while it is working on a new health and sports centre at London’s Brunel University.

In a report accompanying the results field at Companies House, the practice said profits were helped by “very good performances from both our London and Middle East bases”.

Turnover in the UK more than doubled to £14.6m while its business outside the UK and Europe increased from £919,000 to £4.2m.

To cope with its increased workloads, staff numbers increased by close to a third to 149 which sent its wages bill up from £3.8 million to just over £8 million. The highest paid director, who is not named, took home just under £103,000 – up from £68,000 last time.

Pascall & Watson’s work at Stansted is part of a wider redevelopment of the airport which will see Norman Foster’s main arrivals and departures building, which opened in 1991, reconfigured to become a departures-only building. The wider work is expected to be finished around 2023.