Member Article

NG Bailey looking to the future as it posts ‘positive’ results

Ilkley-based NG Bailey, the engineering, IT and facilities services provider, has announced that for the year to 28 February 2014, the firm made an underlying operating profit of £2.1 million.

NG Bailey saw a fall in group sales of 10% to £380 million during the period. The firm says that this was due to the “continued challenges” in the traditional building construction sector and the company enforcing a rigorous selectivity process on bidding to avoid ‘buying’ high risk, low margin work, an approach which they say contributed to the fall in sales volume.

David Hurcomb, NG Bailey’s chief executive, comments: “This is a strong set of results achieved against the backdrop of the worst recession seen in construction, one which has been particularly severe for specialist contractors such as NG Bailey.

“This result is testament to the very high quality of our people and the significant investment in training - including in our renowned apprenticeship programme.

“We have continued to invest in training and in developing new growth sectors throughout the recession as we are confident this will deliver value in the long-term.

“Our Facilities Services, IT Services and Rail divisions performed particularly well, which helped balance the overall result as our other divisions, operating in the more traditional building construction sectors, were hit harder by the financial downturn.

“We have worked very hard to achieve this result. Our balance sheet remains strong, net assets are up against the previous year, to £84 million – almost all of which is in cash - and we have no borrowings.

“We are a well-balanced, profitable, business and we have successfully maintained strict cost controls, whilst still investing to ensure our long-term growth plan is achieved.”

Kevin Whiteman, NG Bailey’s chairman, adds: “A very positive set of results, which further proves NG Bailey’s strength in the marketplace as a leader in its field.

“It also proves that our transformational diversification strategy is the right one, allowing us to better balance the business in the areas of traditional building construction, infrastructure and services.”

NG Bailey’s order book stands at c£600 million with a continuingly expanding customer base across multiple sectors including education, retail, power & industrial, financial services, energy, rail and utilities.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .