Skanska profit falls £2.6m

The UK business of contractor Skanska has seen pre-tax profit for the year to the end of 2007 slip despite a surge in turnover by 44% to £1.3bn.

The company said its pre-tax profit of £32.9m was down 7% from £35.5m in 2006. It claimed profit would have risen “in line with sales” had it not been hit by problems with three unnamed projects.

UK chief executive David Fison said: “2007 was an interesting year with sales growing over 40 per cent and profit remaining flat. Clearly I would have liked profit to rise in line with sales and but for three projects they would have. We’ve got to put that right in the future.

“Otherwise we are firing on all cylinders and I’m immensely proud of the way my people have managed our growth.”

Earlier today Skanska’s overall chief executive Stuart Graham told reporters that sales in 2008 would be “pretty good” across the business which posted a 42 per cent growth in pre tax profit to $268m. Graham added that he was confident the costs of the problems in the UK had been fully accounted for.

According to tables compiled for Building, Skanska won the seventh-highest value of work in 2007 at £1.468bn.

Skanska recently won the contract to build the £242m contract to build the Heron Tower in the capital and is building the £150m Walbrook mixed-use scheme in the City of London.