Profit leaps 122% at demolition firm

The company, which is working on the 310m Shard of Glass tower at London Bridge and the 288m Pinnacle building in the City of London, also reported that its turnover had broken through the £100m mark, rising 43% from £75.3m to £107.8m. Its pre-tax profit margin remained at 4.4%.

The company said: “The management is pleased to record a substantial increase in turnover while maintaining margins. It is a reflection of our reputation for delivery on the most complex projects for major clients.”

In 2007, 384 staff worked for Keltbray, up by a third on the 298 who worked for it the previous year. The highest paid director took home £692,989.

It was recently revealed that demolition on the £500m Pinnacle site had been delayed by at least two months amid legal wrangles over vibration levels.

The work was due to have ended last month but will now continue while enabling works, which have also been put back, begin next month. Keltbray has recently changed from using pneumatic breakers to diamond saws to minimise vibration.

Mace, the project manager on the scheme, said: “The enabling works were always supposed to overlap with demolition but now we are overlapping more to claw back time lost.” It said the tower was still due to complete in mid-2011.