White Young Green enjoys 35% jump in 6-month turnover to £130m

White Young Green, the consultancy group, has unveiled another strong surge in growth, thanks in part to a string of acquisitions made over the past 18 months. Latest interim figures published today show turnover up 35% to £130m.

WYG’s figures cover the six months to 31 December 2007.

Interim pre-tax profit is also well ahead at £7.1m (figure in the first half of the previous financial year: £5.3m).

Blazing the acquisition trail has come at a cost and has left WYG’s profits carrying the toll of amortisation costs associated with the prices it offered to win successful deals. After a figure of £1.6m last time round, amortisation ate a £1.9m hole in the latest profit which would otherwise have run to £9.0m.

Turnover in the first half of the previous year ran to £100m.

Peter Wood, chairman, said that the orderbook is at a record high of £390m which is 18% higher than at the same time last year.

Net debt has risen to £72m, up by £28m on the year, mainly as a result of the spend on acquisitions. As a result, gearing [i.e. the ration of debt to assets] now runs to 67% whereas it stood at 52% previously.

Finance costs of £2.7m were higher than the previous figure of £1.5m as a result of the extra borrowings and the higher interest rates.

The six months have seen an improvement in cash generation from operations to £7.5m (comparable figure in the previous year: £200,000) as a result of improved management of working capital. The figure for working capital days in the UK and Ireland has fallen to 109 days (2006: 114).

Segmental analysis shows that each of WYG’s three operations made a similar operating profit of around £3m-£3.5m. These are:

• engineering – turnover: £61m
• management services – turnover: £45m
• environment – turnover: £32m

The three acquisitions made since 1 July cost a total of £33m. They were:

• Independent Transport Consultants which trades as Savill, Bird & Axon with offices in London, Manchester and Cardiff
• Management Consultants Group, known as IMCL which provides consultancy services to governments and public bodies in the third world and transitional countries
• PH McCarthy Consulting Engineers (PHMP), with offices in Dublin and Limerick, has a foothold in large public infrastructure projects in the water and highways sectors.

All three are still being integrated and are “performing in line with expectations” said Wood. He added: “The acquisition pipeline remains strong and WYG intends to continue its strategy of growth both by acquisition and organically”.