TClarke increasingly optimistic on prospects for specialist building services

Building services group TClarke has held onto its optimism throughout 2017 about its prospects for the year after an encouraging third quarter in which it helped complete the new London headquarters for both Bloomberg and Facebook.

Having secured £190m of the £300m-plus revenues it is targeting this year and £100m of planned revenues for 2019 and beyond, the FTSE small cap-listed company said this showed the "clear demand for our specialist services" in the markets in which it operates. TClark offers mechanical and electrical (M&E) contracting, facilities management, and with specialist teams providing construction services for transport, residential and hotel sectors.

"We entered 2017 in an optimistic mood. Our trading performance during the period has continued to justify that optimism," the company said in a statement on Friday, as it homed in on a full year underlying profit before taxation of £6.5m.

The forward order book stood at £380, down from the record £392m at the June half-year stage but well up on the £320m at the same time last year.

"We are encouraged by the number and quality of the opportunities that continue to be available both within our established M&E markets and from the new opportunities that we are pursuing, driven by sustained investment at national level in both technology and infrastructure," TClark said. "The future for the group remains encouraging."

Roughly £3m has been invested in the financial year so far in the August acquisition of ETON Associates, a London-based control systems specialist in the building management systems space, and investment in a new prefabrication manufacturing facility at Stansted.

The year-end net cash position, which can be affected by timings of stage payments, is expected to be in the region of £9.0m. It was £2.4m at the half-ear stage.

Highlighted contracts in the period included the transport division winning a place on the Manchester Airports Group's small & medium works framework covering M&E projects up to £3.0m at East Midlands, Manchester and Stansted Airports for an initial period of three years.

Two electrical contracts were won in London, including the One Nine Elms residential towers in Battersea, and a M&E contract on a 10-storey office block at The International Quarter in Stratford being developed by Lendlease

In the North West, final client negotiations are close to completion to secure an extension to the current BAE Systems contract at Samlesbury and Warton for a further three years.