LONDON (Alliance News) - Interserve PLC Thursday said its long-standing non-executive chairman Norman Blackwell is set to stand down before the company's 2016 annual general meeting, as it reported a lower pretax profit for 2014 due to transaction and integration costs for recent acquisitions.
Lord Blackwell, who was the head of the policy unit under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major and is a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords, has been the chairman of the support services company for nearly 10 years. He will step down no later than the company's 2016 AGM, and Interserve is already looking externally for a replacement.
The company reported a pretax profit of GBP61.9 million for 2014, down from GBP68.1 million in 2013, as it booked GBP19.4 million in transaction and integration costs for the acquisition of the Initial Facilities business and The Employment & Skills Group. Excluding exceptional items, its pretax profit rose by nearly a third to GBP106.2 million, from GBP81.1 million, as revenue rose 33% to GBP2.91 billion, from GBP2.19 billion.
"2014 was a landmark year for the business in which we advanced our strategy and delivered 35 per cent operating profit growth including strong organic growth despite continuing challenging conditions in a number of our markets," Chief Executive Adrian Ringrose said.
"Our focus on providing high quality services to both new and existing clients resulted in strong work winning during the year, with our future workload rising 26 per cent to a record GBP8.1 billion," he added.
Interserve said it is seeing signs of a recovery in most of its markets and the business is "well positioned to achieve further growth so long as the more extreme global political and economic risks do not crystallise".
Interserve raised its final dividend to 15.5 pence, from 14.7p, meaning the total dividend for the year was 23.0p, up from 21.5p in 2013.
By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1
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