MUIR Group, the contractor, housebuilder and property developer, has seen a further fall in profits in spite of growing revenue in its most recent financial year.
The Fife-based group boosted turnover by 39 per cent to £74.4 million, as activity levels increased in both contracting and private housing, but pre-tax profits slid 8.7 per cent to £4m in what chairman John Muir called “difficult trading conditions”.
Mr Muir said: “It’s encouraging to see turnover increasing significantly across the majority of areas of the business.”
He added: The reduction in development activity reflects continuing issues facing the property market in general, with reduced demand in Aberdeen producing a ripple effect for the north east.”
Housing revenues rose by £5m to £29.9m. Average house prices were £221,000, compared to £195,000 in 2015/2016, with additional sales taking the total number of properties sold to 137.
Development activity halved in the year, with revenues of £4.2m against £8.6m last year. The group said property development for the current year will depend on timing of transactions and market confidence.
Turnover in Timber Systems increased to £4.7m from £3.5m, but a margin squeeze and higher overheads left profits of about £200,000.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here