Strong recovery for Andrews Sykes

The group, which provides pumping, heating and cooling equipment, saw revenue grow 11.8 per cent in 2021 to £75.2 million.

Pre-tax profit was up from £15.8m in 2020 to £19.5m.

Chairman Tony Murray said: "We are thankful and proud of our team members who responded as essential service providers throughout the various stages of the pandemic. The wellbeing of our employees and business partners has always been of paramount importance as we adhered to the various local government guidelines which evolved throughout 2020 and 2021. Our priority of keeping our operations safe for customers, employees, and business partners has allowed Andrews Sykes to weather hopefully the worst of the pandemic and still produce strong financial results for shareholders.

"Despite these unprecedented circumstances, we are encouraged how the business has constantly adapted to overcome operational issues and explore new revenue opportunities which have arisen through various avenues such as the supporting of Covid testing and vaccinations stations. The group has also achieved a rebound in revenues from our core traditional markets of "comfort" cooling and heating despite various lockdowns and 'stay at home' guidance being in effect at multiple different times throughout the year."

The group's Uk pump hire business had another strong year and was 16 per cent up on the previous year's revenue.

There was a much higher level of trading across most of the group's businesses as the effects of the coronavirus pandemic started to recede. Turnover for the second half of the year was up 10.7 per cent on the first half.

Its European saw turnover increase from £16.1m to £19.4m and operating profit from £3.6m to £5.2m.

The turnover of the hire and sales business in the Middle East decreased from £10.3m to £7.9m

2021, a total of £9.9 million in cash dividends has been returned to our ordinary shareholders.

The board has decided to propose a final dividend of 12.5p per share.