A £77m loss from its highways business saw infrastructure giant Amey post a pre-tax loss of nearly £44m for the last year.
The group’s revenue for 2016 was £2.23bn, identical to the figure for 2015.
Amey helped upgrade the motorway network in Central Scotland
In a summary introducing the group’s 2016 accounts, Amey CEO Andy Milner said: ‘It is true that our markets have plateaued. Many of our customers have made large budget cuts and that will continue.’
Mr Milner said restructuring the company led to it ‘becoming a much more agile organisation and we have reduced our annualised cost base by £50m’.
He added: ‘Amey’s current order book is £10.5bn with recent major contract wins including the operation and maintenance of Greater Manchester’s Metrolink light rail network in partnership with Keolis and a 10-year contract worth £100m with four Surrey councils to offer a range of new waste collection services.'
During 2016, the company amalgamated its highways businesses across the strategic road network with the services it provides to local highways authorities. Revenue for this sector was £542m but operating losses, including exceptional items, were £77m.
The company said it had achieved a positive outcome to its long-running dispute with Birmingham City Council, which had created an exceptional credit of £8m.
However it had also incurred costs of £9.9m and £5m from claims from Herefordshire and Cumbria county councils respectively.
It said its new management team had reviewed its ongoing contracts, ‘which has resulted in a more prudent assessment of the contract portfolio’.
Amey made an operating profit of £43.6m from its consulting and rail business on revenue of £486m.
Depite recent reports that infrastructure operator Network Rail is struggling financially, it stated that it expects ‘an ongoing programme of investments in the UK rail network covering reliability and maintainability, track and signalling and enhancement services’.
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