Record profit for Pochin - but performance is still a curate's egg

Pochin has announced a record profit of more than £9m – despite poor performances in its two construction divisions.

First the good news. Pochin’s annual turnover (12 months to 31 May) jumped ahead strongly to £120m (previous year’s figure: £90m) producing a 50% rise in pre-tax profit over the previous figure of £6m.

Pochin’s pack of four cards stands on the strength of its property division, which achieved a sparkling operating profit of £10m on sales of £35m.

But the bad news is that in Pochin’s contracting division, turnover of £67m generated an operating profit of just £120,000, while the even-worse news is that the group’s construction services division delivered a wafer-thin £4,000 profit from turnover of £14m.

Pochin’s various divisions’ operating profits are quoted before the allocation of £900,000 of headquarters costs. Also, the figures only cover Pochin’s continuing operations.

John Woodcock, chairman, said: “I am delighted to report that the group has continued to make excellent progress producing another record set of results.”

That said, Woodcock conceded that contracting’s profits were disappointing, though performance in the second half of the period was better, the result being that losses reported at the half-year were more than covered.

In construction services, the poor profit of £130,000 in 2005, followed by the even lower £4,000 figure this time, has triggered action.  The Avoidatrench business has been sold and management buy-outs have seen a parting of the ways from both Cheshire Concrete Products and Pipeline Drillers.

“We have restructured the management team to concentrate on our concrete pumping operations,” said Woodcock. “We continue to review and improve our fleet.”