Kier made a pre-tax profit of £9m in the six months to 31 December 2020, recovering from a pre-tax loss of £41.2m in the same period a year before.
Group revenue was £1.6bn, down from £1.8bn in the six months to 31 December 2019 as a result of exiting loss-making contracts and additional covid-19 restrictions in the UK.
The results came following Kier’s announcement earlier this week that it had sold its Kier Living business to investor Guy Hands for £110m, in a bid to reduce its debt.
Kier chief executive Andrew Davies hailed the results as a sign that its strategy to improve cash generation and eat into its debt pile was working. The business is now considering an equity raise of up to £240m to further reduce its debt.
Davies said: “The process of simplifying the group has been substantially completed through the exit of non-core businesses and the adoption of an appropriate cost base. These actions will have delivered annualised cost savings of at least £115m by the end of FY21.”
Meanwhile, Kier’s order book stood at £8bn at 31 December 2020, covering 62% of its forecast revenue for the year to 30 June 2022.
It said it had also reduced the average time it takes to pay supplier invoices from 38 days to 34 days, with the percentage of payments made to suppliers withing 60 days increasing from 84% to 91%.
