Mace achieved a profit margin of 1.4%, as it targets a minimum of 2.5% by 2022, its latest annual report showed.
The company passed the £2bn turnover mark for the first time in 2018, as it reached group turnover of £2.35bn, up 19% on 2017. The company’s construction turnover was £1.99bn, accounting for 85% of total turnover. Its consultancy turnover in 2018 was £274m, while international turnover rose 25% to £831m.
Meanwhile, the group’s pre-tax profit was £32.8m, an increase of 41% on 2017. The business employed a total of 6,376 people during the year, with the construction headcount accounting for 2,121 people.
Last year was the first year of Mace’s five-year business strategy, which sees Mace focus on engaging and inspiring its people, achieving sustainable growth, driving innovation, and being a responsible business. In 2018, the company invested £44m in research and development, while it calculated its contribution to society during the year at £491m.
The company also pointed to a reduction in the average time it took to pay invoices from 45 days down to 34 days and highlighted the fact that 28% of its workforce is now made up of women.
Among other targets under the strategy are an accident frequency rate of no more than 0.05, a lost time injury rate of 0.21 per 100,000 hours worked, and a total contribution to society of at least £500m a year.
Chief executive Mark Reynolds said: “Breaking the £2bn turnover mark was a significant achievement for Mace and reaffirms that we are unarguably of the size and scale to take on the very largest projects and programmes around the world.”
“Now that our construction division is of such a significant size, we are looking to incrementally grow its turnover over the next four years, focussing more on margin improvement and risk management. Reflecting this, turnover from construction rose from £1.63bn to £1.99bn. If we included the £713m of construction management work turnover would have been £2.7bn. We anticipate turnover reducing in 2019 largely due to slowing UK market conditions and the increased amount of construction management contracts we have taken on.”
