MOTHERWELL Bridge, the Lanarkshire-based engineering contractor, will unveil figures this week showing another year of progress for the company as it builds its international operations.
Pre-tax profits will come in at £13.66m for the year to the end of June, though the figure is inflated by the proceeds of the sale of MB Inspection in January to an overseas buyer. The previously reported pre-tax figure of £7.1m was for a 10-month tr
ading period.
A better guide to trading performance is the £6m underlying earnings from continuing operations (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), a rise of about 20% on last year.
Chairman Hugh Hayes describes it as an "extremely healthy trading result".
The group now consists of two engineering subsidiaries, MB Engineering Services (including MB Plastics), which operates principally in the UK, and Motherwell Bridge International, operating in selected overseas markets. The company was free of net debt at the year end.
In June, Scotland on Sunday revealed that the firm, which has 500 employees, had been sold to Kuwait Finance House (Bahrain) and the management team. Two of the company's three new Middle East-based non-executive directors attended their first board meeting in Motherwell on Wednesday.
Hayes said: "We have started the new financial year with strong order books through into 2009 and later in some divisions, and continue to receive a high level of enquiries. Overall we expect the current year to be very successful."
He admitted the economic downturn had brought about some delays on projects but said nothing had been cancelled.
The full article contains 267 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
