Firm hit by £3.5m cost of dealing with reverse VAT charge

M&E contractor T Clarke returned to the black in the first half of the year with the firm reporting a record order book of more than £500m.

The company, which is working on the Facebook scheme at King’s Cross as well as the 8 Bishopsgate tower in the City of London, said pre-tax profit was £1.9m, up from the £1.5m interim loss it suffered last year when the firm’s workloads were ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

T Clarke

The firm has set itself a £500m turnover target by 2024

Turnover in the six months to 30 June was up 30% to £138m with the Clarke saying it was on track to meet its £500m turnover target by 2024 which it set itself earlier this year,.

It added that its order book had grown to £503m during the period with much of that coming from the growing technology sector which has seen it land work on three data centre schemes during the period. The increase in work from technology was 169% to £132m.

It said its biggest business, London, would deliver “very significant growth in volumes in the second half” with two thirds of its income and 80% of profit from the region due to be accounted for in the six months to December.

Clarke said that a one-off £3.5m cost of dealing with the reverse VAT charge, which was introduced in March after being delayed by nearly 18 months, and paying back £1.1m in VAT deferred because of the covid-19 pandemic cut its net cash down to £2m from £7.5m.