Hyder looks to 6% margins

Hyder Consulting has turned its business fortunes around and is now working on a three-year programme to achieve the average margin of 6%.

"We have benefited from the completion of a number of low-margin projects but our average is still less than 1%," said finance director Simon Hamilton-Eddy, as the group unveiled its latest annual results. "But we're now working towards the industry average. The low margin projects didn't seem that way when we took them on, but we now put less focus on such big projects. Looking forward, we're happy as the market is buoyant."

Hyder Consulting was re-listed on the London Stock Exchange in October last year after a deal that took it into Firth, a quoted shell company that was no longer actively trading in its own right.

In the five months since then, Hyder's £50m turnover delivered an operating profit of £2.1m. Overheads have been reined in and profit has risen despite a doubling in professional indemnity insurance costs.