Losses increase at JRL’s modular business despite turnover improving

JRL’s modular housing business has recorded another year of losses, despite an improvement in turnover. 

JRL Group’s 2023 accounts, published last October, revealed that the firm’s losses over the previous two years had topped £80m, after it was forced to restate its 2022 figures as a result of material and labour costs on fixed price jobs.

The accounts of the firm’s individual subsidiaries have now begun to be filed at Companies House with figures for the modular business showing widening losses.

The business has been part of JRL since 2022, when it bought the stricken housing firm Caledonian Modular out of administration, saving 200 jobs at its Newark factory.

But financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2023 showed the business was continuing to struggle.

Revenue increased to £23.1m, from £14m the year prior but pre-tax losses to £8.3m, from the £2.3m loss it racked up the year before.

JRL Modular is one of 14 subsidiaries of the Hertfordshire-based JRL Group. Two others, Midgard and J Reddington, also recently reported their results for the year to 31 December 2023.

Midgard, the main contracting division in JRL, fell from an £8.65m profit to a £9.92m loss, despite increasing turnover from £536m to £612m.

>> Read more: Government launches wider probe into Caledonian Modular after school closures 

But J Reddington, its groundworks and concrete frame specialist, reduced its losses, from £8.2m to £746,000, on turnover down from £396m to £352m.

Malaysian conglomerate IJM Corporation agreed to take a 50% stake in the JRL Group last November.

Listed on Bursa Malaysia, the country’s stock exchange, IJM was set up in 1983 and specialises in construction, property development, materials and infrastructure concessions.