Tube Lines posts £63m profit

Tube Lines, the consortium responsible for the upgrade of the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly sections of the London Underground, has again lifted its profit. Latest annual results show pre-tax profit £9m higher at £63m.

The latest profit figure (12 months to 31 March 2006) represents a margin of 7.2% for the construction firms working in the Tube Lines consortium, more than double the industry norm of 3%.

Turnover was slightly higher at £880m (£860m). The highest-paid director was chief executive Terry Morgan, whose £563,000 salary was supplemented with a further £114,000 to help his pension pot.

Tube Lines is contracted to spend £4.5bn to maintain and modernise stations, track and signalling over the first seven and a half years of its 30-year contract.

"We are faster at replacing track than we used to be," said Morgan. "We replaced more than 1km of track in a single weekend, something unprecedented in the history of the underground.

"We have continued to hit, and indeed exceed, many of our performance targets. The number of days without delay across our part of the network rose to 106.

"Last year we spent more than £460m improving lines, bringing investment forward and completing projects earlier than originally planned."

[Contract Journal, 23 August 2006, p 2]