'Grey Murphy' moves out of the red with 0.1% profit margin

Murphy Ltd, known in the construction industry as “Grey Murphy” has got itself out of the red - but only just.

After running up a loss of £2.3m last year the group has moved back into profit.

Latest annual results (covering the 12 months to 31 August 2007) show a pre-tax profit of £77,000 on turnover of £75m, a performance that represents a profit margin of 0.1%.

The loss in the previous year was made on a turnover of £60m.

Grey Murphy’s main business is long-term maintenance contracts with utility companies.

It started trading in 1957 by specialising in underground and overhead line cable installation of all types, from instrumentation and services to 275KV, incorporating the provision of joining and testing up to 66KV, and all associated trenching and civil works.

Murphy then developed into other areas of work such as multi-utility installation and motorway infrastructure.
 
The company states: “We believe that our policy of a directly employed well-trained staff base, together with an owned transport and plant fleet, results in tight control of the quality of our performance.”

The workforce rose to 698 last year with 627 of these employees being involved in production and 28 in management. A further 43 worked in administration.

Murphy’s wage bill rose to £20m last year.

The highest-paid director was paid £89,000 and he had a further pension contribution running to £9,000.