Breedon report record results
Executive chairman Peter Tom says 2015 was another significant year for Breedon Aggregates
BREEDON Aggregates say 2015 proved to be another significant year for the company with continued improvement in trading performance and record results from both England and Scotland. For the 12 months ended 31 December, Group sales revenue increased by 18.1% to £318.5 million (2014: £269.7 million), underlying EBITDA rose by 42.6% to £54.9 million (2014: £38.5 million) and profit before tax increased by 46.4% to £31.3 million (2014: £21.4 million).
The Group’s underlying EBITDA margin improved from 14.3% in 2014 to 17.2% last year, thereby achieving the medium-term margin target set for the business back in 2010. Going forward, Breedon say they will focus on underlying EBIT margin as their principal performance measure and expect to achieve their medium-term target of 15% by 2020. Last year, underlying EBIT margin increased to 11.9% from 9.0% in 2014.
For the 2015 as a whole, Group aggregates volumes were up 13.5% at 8.7 million tonnes (2014: 7.7 million tonnes), asphalt volumes were up 18.3% at 1.8 million tonnes (2014: 1.5 million tonnes) and ready-mixed concrete volumes were up 13.3% at 0.9 million cubic metres (2014: 0.8 million cubic metres).
In November 2015, Breedon announced the planned £336 million acquisition of Hope Construction Materials, a move which will almost double the size of the business. The transaction, which is subject to the approval of the Competition and Markets Authority, is expected to complete in mid-2016.
At the end of 2015, Breedon finalized their largest ever contract: the £55 million contract to supply and lay asphalt on the £745 million Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route, in a joint venture with Whitemountain.
Commenting on the results, Breedon’s executive chairman, Peter Tom (pictured), described 2015 as ‘another significant year’ for the company. ‘Our trading performance continued to improve and we again reported record results; we finalized our largest ever contract win; and we announced the planned acquisition of Hope Construction Materials. We are tremendously excited by the future potential for this business.’
Looking ahead, Mr Tom said: ‘The outlook for our business continues to be encouraging. The Government remains committed to infrastructure investment and all the relevant forecasting bodies predict modest but sustained growth in construction output over the next few years. This means a steady growth in demand for our products. We begin an exciting new era in 2016 with the planned acquisition of Hope and we look forward to the future with confidence.’
