Profit at Mace doubled to £23m on flat revenue of £1.97bn in 2017, in what the firm’s management has labelled a “year of stabilisation”.
Mace has doubled turnover from £1bn to nearly £2bn over the last five years, while delivering projects such as The Shard in London, Birmingham New Street, the Tate Modern Extension, Dubai Expo 2020, and the 2019 Pan American Games in Peru.
The amount of international work it undertook in 2017 rose by nearly a third to £665m. It now employs 6,000 people over six continents.
However, Mace said its construction business focused on “selective bidding” during the year as well as introduction greater operational controls that allowed it to improve its profit margin while maintaining turnover.
Meanwhile, turnover at its consultancy business grew by 17% to £267m in 2017. Mace has created MMQSMace in South Africa and MaceYMR in east Africa by acquiring significant stakes in local companies.
The firm also released details of its five-year business strategy, in which it aims to deliver “sustainable margins” of at least 2.5% as well as investing £350m to increase productivity.
Mace said it would manage risk across its projects and bidding activity with the aim of maintaining fee and contracting revenues, as well as trying to deliver a more balanced return from consultancy and construction projects to boost Mace’s resilience to market fluctuations.
It also plans to expand its development management offer and consultancy business, while its facility management business Macro continues its international expansion.
Chief executive Mark Reynolds said: “2017 was a good year for Mace. Our profits more than doubled from the year before and we invested nearly £50m in innovation to improve how we deliver projects and boost our productivity.
"Over the last five years we have seen incredible organic growth and delivered amazing world-leading projects for our clients. Our 2022 Business Strategy will help us provide even more career opportunities for our people, ensure we remain a resilient and consistently profitable business and deliver projects “in a better way”.
"Importantly we must now transform ourselves at pace by using the tools available to us. Only by embracing innovation and off-site solutions will we tackle the skills shortages and become the leader of a more progressive construction industry.”
Stephen Pycroft, executive chairman of Mace said: “The last year saw Mace return to a position of strength. Our cash balances are the highest they have ever been. By the end of 2017 we had secured over 80% of our work for 2018, and 30% of our company-wide turnover is now generated by our international businesses, something which will become hugely important to us as we diversify our business and continue our expansion plans.”
