Galliford back on track after £3.8m spend

The restructuring needed to get Galliford Try's construction division back on the rails has cost the group £3.8m.
Andy Sturgess was brought in as the new managing director in January. Asked to itemise the £3.8m spend, he said that restructuring and redundancies accounted for £1.9m, while the termination of leases added a further £250,000. Exiting losses on a number of difficult projects ran to £1.5m.
The turnaround looks to have worked, with the construction division notching up an operating profit of £1.6m in the second half after suffering an operating loss of £2m in the first.
Galliford's group turnover was little changed at £640m, with a pre-tax profit of £13.5m after the exceptional charges. The housing division saved the group's blushes with an operating profit of £24m.
The construction division had lost its way in three areas: pricing; understanding design risk; and the execution of projects.
Galliford Try Construction has dropped its regional "contractor format" and now works within national specialities. All water and rail contracts are handled at the Warrington office, PFI is based at Wolvey, near Coventry, and Uxbridge houses the commercial market team.