Hill & Smith profits fall despite growth return

The Solihull-headquartered firm saw underlying pre-tax profits fall from £78.5 million to £76.3 million and revenue increase nine per cent to £637.9 million for the year ending December 31 2018.

Revenues increased 11 per cent to £447.5 million in the infrastructure division, which accounted for 70 per cent of the total revenue.

The company, which employs more than 4,000 in seven countries, mainly manufactures products for the construction industry.

It includes its namesake motorway barriers factory at Bilston; Halesowen-based galvanising firm Joseph Ash, which also has sites in Telford, Walsall and Bilston, and Oldbury-based street lighting firm Signature.

A total of seven acquisitions were completed in 2018 and early 2019.

The company also announced that Mark Pegler, group finance director, would step down at the end of April.

Looking ahead, the company said that it remained exposed to any impact Brexit may have on currency, and said despite the current cautious investment environment in the UK, the fundamentals of its niche infrastructure markets remained encouraging.

Chief executive Derek Muir said: “We returned to growth in the second half, a testament to our resilient business model, our leading positions in markets with clear long-term growth dynamics, and our ability to create our own growth opportunities by broadening and enhancing the range of products that we can offer. We do this both through internal product development and by targeting complementary acquisitions, and 2018 has been a busy and successful year in this regard.

“Our UK and US businesses, which represent the bulk of our activities, will continue to benefit from the significant ongoing investment in replacement and new infrastructure in those countries. In particular, the UK Government’s confirmed long-term commitment to increased investment in the roads network is very encouraging for our UK roads business, and our US businesses will benefit from the US Administration’s ‘Buy American’ policy for federally funded infrastructure projects.

“Despite all the current well-documented political and macro-economic uncertainty, we are confident that our leading market positions, business model and financial strength put us in a strong position to take advantage of market opportunities as they present themselves. Whilst we continue to experience some short term uncertainty in the UK, we have reasonable expectations that 2019 will be a year of progress for the group.”