TClarke delivers in the First Year of £500m Revenue Growth Plan : Chairman’s Statement
9/3/22
TClarke has continued to grow and deliver outstanding performance and results in 2021. Our revenue of £327m has exceeded the target of £300m that we set at the start of 2021. Our operating profit is £8.8m; over £6.5m of which was delivered in the last 6 months of the year at a margin of 3.3% as our revenues accelerated.
The success of our strategies and deliveries, the quality of our products, services and methods, and the strength and depth of our client relationships have enabled significant progress to be made in the achievement of our medium term revenue target of £500m.
While we continue to grow and deliver in our core Engineering Services markets, we are also delivering significant growth and performance in our strategic growth sectors, particularly Technology, in which we have developed capabilities, leadership and new client relationships. These are making a significant and growing contribution to our revenue growth and target. This growth and performance is supported by strong financial, management and delivery disciplines which are constantly and consistently applied across the Group. The forward order book stands at a record level of £534m, an increase of 17% on the year, of which £379m represents committed revenue for 2022. The proportion of the order book represented by Technology has risen to 25% from 10% in 2020.
We know that our shareholders and investors value our progressive dividend stream. We continue to be fully committed to a progressive dividend policy while at the same time balancing the needs and interests of all stakeholders. We are proposing a 2021 final dividend of 4.1p per share, which together with the interim dividend paid in October 2021 brings the full 2021 dividend to 4.85p per share – an increase of 10%.
TClarke is committed to becoming a more sustainable business, delivering improved environmental and sustainability targets and performance. It is TClarke’s ambition to be a Business Champion with Build UK demonstrating our commitment to the Construction Leadership Council’s zero carbon change programme CO2nstruct Zero.
Our growth and success is delivered through the skills, experiences, focus and commitment of our people, subcontractors and suppliers in all areas of the business. We continue to invest heavily in our resources to ensure we have the capacity to deliver our growth ambitions. We are strongly committed to developing and adding to the skills and experience of our people through our national apprenticeship schemes and our personal and management development frameworks, and to be the employer of choice in our markets. For example, we currently have 195 apprentices representing 16% of our people whilst the industry norm is just 5%. This is a significant investment made with the long term belief in TClarke.
I look forward to 2022 and beyond, confident in our ability to deliver our growth strategy. We have the capacity, a healthy order book and many opportunities. The TClarke brand is very strong, built upon our reputation for high quality engineering, reliability, and delivery on time. This is made possible through the collective efforts of all our people. It is their outstanding effort that has allowed us to be so optimistic for the future and I want to thank them all for their hard work and dedication.
Iain McCusker
Chairman
8th March 2022