Stocks in Focus: Kier Group

This week Laura Davies of NW Brown looks at property, residential, construction and services firm Kier Group, which announced preliminary full year results last week.

Kier Group's performance was in line with management expectations and the results showed a group pre-tax profit of £126m, compared with £116m last year, while revenues for the year have risen to £4.28bn, 3 per cent higher than the previous year.

The results were well received in a sector where a number of Kier’s competitors had experienced problems. Investors were reassured that management’s portfolio simplification programme has been a success since they made the decision to sell the Hong Kong and Caribbean businesses earlier this year. The simplification has resulted in increased focus on its three core markets; building, infrastructure and housing, which now represent 90 per cent of the group’s revenues and profits.

Management are confident that the business will remain relatively unaffected by Brexit and the firm is likely to benefit further from the increasing government focus on affordable housing, having already secured government funding over the last year to build new homes.

When writing about Kier last year, we explained that the contractor had laid out a “Vision 2020” plan of strategic targets to reach by 2020. The reassuring recent results along with the decision by the board to raise the full year dividend by 5 per cent, should help to increase investor belief that the group is on track to hit its ambitious target of £200m in annual operating profits by 2020. However, the economic environment remains challenging.



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