Contractor Sir Robert McAlpine has suffered a pretax loss of £43m in its latest results due to an exceptional writedown on its pension scheme.
Results posted at Companies House for McAlpine’s holding company, Newarthill, for the year to October 2016 show the firm suffered the loss after a £53.4m pension scheme hit, overshadowing the improved profitability for its contracting business.
Newarthill posted a £43.2m pretax loss for the year, a reduction in pretax losses of £50.5m and £67.8m the previous two years.
Turnover rose 8.7% to £869.6m, up from £799.7m in the previous 12 months.
Without the pension scheme writedown, the firm returned to an underlying pretax profit of £10.2m, after finishing a number of loss-making jobs.
Sir Robert McAlpine completed all its problem jobs during the financial year and incurred “all of the substantial costs”, the accounts said.
The company added: “The United Kingdom construction market remains highly competitive and the central London market in particular has added uncertainty following the referendum result on EU membership.
“Despite this, with the completion of our legacy contracts the 2016 results show a dramatic improvement over the previous year.
“With our robust risk management and tendering procedures now embedded in the business, the profitability of the business continues to grow.”
The firm is also targeting more work through frameworks as part of its strategy through to 2019, while civil engineering is intended to make up “a major part” of the contractor’s turnover by the same year.
