Bouygues back in the black

Reorganising the business and more jobs making money helped return the UK business of French giant Bouygues into the black last year.

The firm had nosedived to a £78m pre-tax loss in 2016 which the firm said was down to a handful of loss-making jobs and ballooning supply chain costs.

But the firm said a number of recently awarded jobs were contributing “positively” to operating profit while a rejig of the business, which included absorbing its Thomas Vale subsidiary into its group UK business, helped see the firm post a pre-tax profit of £8.6m for the year to December 2017.

Turnover was up 7% to £597m with recent project wins including a £35m training centre at the Hinkley point C nuclear power station in Somerset and a £123m innovation hub for Cardiff university.