Capitalising for growth : Oversubscribed placing raises £10.7m
Group CEO Mark Lawrence confirms successful placing of shares to fund ongoing strong growth story.
Funding immediate opportunities for controlled growth and increased profitability
Hard work has presented us with very significant and valuable contract opportunities in our target growth sectors that we expect will materially enhance Group profitability, with higher operating margins reflecting the benefits from enhanced economies of scale.
Stakeholder interest, growth momentum, planned enhancements to business capacity and the nature of these opportunities all build the case for this action – and this successful placing of shares enables us to make the progress we want, with the control and order we want.
The net proceeds of the placing will strengthen our balance sheet and provide additional resources which will enable the Group to capture and deliver identified short-to-medium-term attractive contract opportunities in the London region.
Building on a transformational year of growth
Our growth story achieved a genuine step change in FY22. We positioned ourselves well to achieve our stated £500m revenue target in FY23 and we made very significant progress across our key growth markets including data centres, healthcare, smart buildings and larger regional projects. Most satisfyingly this growth in revenue and profitability has been matched by the continued strengthening of our balance sheet as well as our traditionally highly attractive dividend profile.
We are achieving real and sustainable growth – building steadily, growing our capacity organically ahead of demand and building a very strong track record of picking the right markets and areas of specialism in which to focus. Growth is based on engineering excellence, delivered by our people and our ‘in-house service’ model for which the market shows such a strong and continued preference.
Securing our platform for future growth and leadership in key markets
Data Centre growth opportunities (particularly in and around London – Europe’s largest data centre market) are strong and consistent, looking ahead – but they form only one part of our future growth story. I am every bit as excited by the prospects which decarbonisation and action on climate change will offer for us nationwide. These urgent and necessary targets will require advance engineering of the quality and nature that I believe TClarke is unique in offering. Healthcare has very similar characteristics.
This successful placing of shares to fund growth opportunities ensures that we have full freedom to continue with our prudent, organic and client-focused growth programme. We are building real jobs and careers across the UK, enhancing and building our engineering leadership in the industry and significantly increasing the value story for all of our stakeholders.