BILL Robertson, whose Elgin-based construction group is one of Scotland's major independents, says he is still hoping for a 2016 flotation of his debt-free and diversified group.

The chairman and 75 per cent owner of Robertson Group said he hoped to return it to pre-recession profitability and attract new sources of infrastructure funding.

"I would like to think that (a flotation) is still on but there is no rush to do it.

"It would address funding options as well but is contingent on improved profitability," he added.

Robertson has one of the highest industry profiles in Scotland with projects for the whisky industry and the public sector's East Central Hub.

At the moment Robertson is building 600 affordable homes in Dumfries, St Andrews and Inverness, and is involved in regeneration schemes in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Mr Robertson revealed that the group had sold a further £44m of project investments last year, following £73m of sales in 2012-13, when the group repaid its £61m of bank debt. But there was a further £8m writedown on its housing landback (after £5m the previous year) and £4m of other trading losses, resulting in a pre-tax profit of £34.6m (£1.1m loss).

Finance costs were slashed from £19m to £2.4m, year-end cash rose by £9m to £21m, and the balance sheet strengthened from £29m to £63.3m

But margins slipped from 8.3 per cent to 7.2 per cent. Mr Robertson said: "Our targeted margin is five per cent net, we won't do that over a year or two but in two to three years we should get there."

Robertson agreed a long-term banking facility with Santander earlier this year, which it said would allow it to continue to invest further in housebuilding and public sector projects.

But the chairman said generally speaking banks "are not here now, particularly for our sector, we have got to address that, and one of the reasons they don't like our sector is the relative low margins we have been operating with".

The group is in the fourth year of a five-year overhaul begun in 2010 and it has moved back into civil engineering and into building services, both of which were said to have made a modest contribution last year.

A key growth area is its facilties management arm, which made a £2.7m profit last year on a 22 per cent rise in turnover and employs more than half the total 1,300 group headcount.

Mr Robertson said the group no longer relied on speculative property development or the house building market where up to 50 per cent of profits were generated pre-recession, but was making progress in affordable housing and urban regeneration.

Turnover in the homes division was up 13 per cent.

Construction increased turnover by 21 per cent to £194m, and its profits were up 11 per cent which the chairman said compared well with its peer group.

He was "delighted" at the current order book which was up 52 per cent on last year at £402m and includes work at the new Macallan distillery and visitor centre on Speyside for Edrington Group.

Total group turnover at Robertson was up 13 per cent at £261m and the forward order book has edged ahead to a record £1.7bn.

Mr Robertson said: "We are of the firm opinion that once the UK funding market settles, funders will be attracted to our sector albeit they would expect to see players in our market produce profit levels which balance with our risk profile.

"Our objective now is to select higher value projects to improve the profitability of the business."