Amec edges closer to £5bn turnover mark

Amec improved profit last year and edged closer to the £5bn turnover barrier. Pre-tax profit increased 7% to £112.5m before exceptional items. Turnover was up 9% from £4.3bn in 2002 to £4.7bn last year.

The exceptional items were corporate costs of £26.5m, goodwill amortisation of £17m and credit of £200,000.

Growth was achieved despite a poor performance by the US Construction Management business, where the operating loss nearly doubled to £5m. According to chief executive Sir Peter Mason, a strategic review of the business is "well advanced and is expected to be concluded shortly", suggesting that Amec intends to offload it.

The order book, excluding UK rail maintenance, Spie Batignolles, US Construction Management and Regional Services activities, amounts to £3bn (£2.7bn at year-end 2002).

The operations support side of Client Support Services enjoyed a 51% boost in turnover, reaching £2.2bn, principally due to the acquisition of Spie, and delivered an operating profit of £86.1m. The consulting and design arm suffered a small drop in turnover and profit with figures of £309.5m and £8.7m.

The construction side of Capital Projects offered a slight increase in turnover and operating profit to reach £1.9bn and £60.6m respectively.

Sir Peter noted that the transfer of Amec's West Anglia and Sussex infrastructure maintenance contracts to Network Rail by 24 July will have no material impact on the 2004 figures.

He remains confident of winning work in Iraq.