Profit at Capita's property business rises 46%

Consultant Capita’s property and infrastructure business has nearly doubled its profit in the first half of the year to £10.6m.

In a statement to the City this morning, Capita said its property and infrastructure business had posted an underlying pre-tax profit of £10.1m in the six months to 30 June 2014, up 46% from £6.9m over the same period in 2013.

The underlying profit figures did not include finance costs, amortisation or aquisition costs which were spread across the group.

The property and infrastructure business also reported a 27% hike in revenue to £160m in the first six months of 2014, up from £141m in the first six months of 2013.

Capita’s professional services business also performed well reporting an underlying pre-tax profit of £63m in the first half of 2014, up from £60m over the same period last year.

Professional services revenue also rose to £335m - up from £313m over the same period last year.

The results in the professional services and the property and infrastructure businesses were a significant boost to the results of the overall Capita Group, which reported an underlying pre-tax profit of £238m in the six months to 30 June 2014, up from £205m in the six months to 30 June 2013.

The group also reported a rise in revenue to £2bn in the first half of 2014, up from £1.8bn in the first half of 2013.

The strong financial results follow Capita’s appointment earlier this month to project manage the delivery of the BBC’s new headquarters in Cardiff (pictured) designed by architect Foster + Partners.

Andy Parker, chief executive of Capita, said the results “demonstrated the strength of Capita’s sales offering and operational delivery and the health of the UK customer and business process management market”.

He added: “We have had an excellent sales period securing £1.3bn of contracts and we are continuing to see a high level of activity across our markets, particularly in the private sector, providing a strong future platform for growth.”

One of the firm’s biggest wins in the period was the £400m job to act as the private sector partner for the Ministry of Defence’s estate arm, which will see it manage over £10bn of spending on the Ministry of Defence’s estate.