T Clarke remains confident as orders flourish

Listed M&E contractor T Clarke said this morning its order book has climbed to more than £420m as the firm confirmed it was on target to hit the year-end numbers outlined in a trading update at the start of last month.

The firm said its forward order book was up 17% to £422m, with revenue of £257m already secured for next year against an equivalent of £232m for this time in 2019.

T Clarke said it was on course for margins of 3% in the second half of the year after the impact of covid-19 sent it to a pre-tax loss of £1.5m in the first half from a £4.5m pre-tax profit last time on revenue down 38% to £106m.

But it said trading has improved considerably from the second quarter and said it was expecting revenue for the year of around £240m and underlying profit of approximately £6m – although this is considerably down on the £335m turnover it posted last year where underlying profit stood at £9.2m.

The firm said it was helping with the rollout of dozens of covid-19 testing stations across the UK which are typically built with 24 hours.

Earlier this year, the firm said it spent £3.6m completing a restructuring because of the covid crisis which has seen 80 jobs go at the business, around 6% of its 1,400-strong workforce.