"Strong results" for Wates Construction

Wates Construction made a pre-tax profit of £11m on a turnover of £430m last year.

Announcing the latest figures for the major part of the Wates Group, chief executive Struan Robertson said this week that he was "delighted with such a strong set of result".

Robertson is the first non-family chief executive at Wates, a private family-owned group. After a career in the oil industry with BP, Robertson took the helm at Wates two years ago and immediately set about transforming the group's internal structure.

Robertson said: "We're not sitting on our laurels because construction is a rapidly changing industry. In the past 18 months, we've seen a significant development of our portfolio of services but there is the potential for more.

"What is most important to us is that we try to stand in our customers' shoes. We need to ask ourselves what they really want and need, and how can we deliver it. Everything flows from that premise. All in all, the future looks very exciting."

The Wates Group is now structured around five national, customer-facing market streams as opposed to a traditional, regional office structure. The five are: public sector and social housing; special services (including rail, technology, facilities management and maintenance); commercial and inner-city residential; interiors; and homes/residential development.

The latest results cover four of the five streams, performances in the homes/residential developments division having been excluded. "We are not reporting them," said Robertson.

Asked how the four quoted businesses had performed in the previous year, Robertson said their profits were "lower". He promised that next year's results will cover the whole of the Wates Group.