Breedon, a leading UK and Ireland construction materials group, saw its year-on-year revenue rise by more than £200 million in 2018.
Newly published audited figures for the year showed group revenue rose 32% to £862.7 million, compared to £652.4mn in 2017. Breedon’s profit before tax also rose by a healthy 12% to £79.9 million, up from £71.2mn in 2017. Group net debt stood at £310.7mn as of 31 December 2018, up from £109.8mn at 2017 end.
Breedon posted a sizeable increase in its aggregates sales in 2018 to 19.4mn tonnes, compared to 16mn tonnes sold the previous year. The group sold 2.8mn tonnes of asphalt (2017: 1.9 million tonnes), 3.2 million m³ of ready-mixed concrete (2017: 3.3 million m³) and 2mn tonnes of cement.
In a statement accompanying Breedon’s annual results, Peter Tom CBE, the group’s executive chairman, said that the £455mn acquisition of the Northern Ireland-headquartered Lagan Group in April 2018 was transformative. “It took us into an attractive new market with significant growth potential, also helping to offset a muted GB performance in the year under review. In addition, the Tarmac asset swap was important as it enabled us to streamline our concrete network by relinquishing 23 peripheral plants in exchange for 25 million tonnes of reserves in four quarries, together with an asphalt plant, thereby further strengthening our asset base and improving the quality of our earnings,” said Tom.
Summing up Leicestershire, England-headquartered Breedon’s 2018 trading year, he added: “We can be justifiably proud of our results. We outperformed the GB market in sales volumes of all our key products, grew our revenues and Underlying EBIT, and once again generated strong cash flow, enabling us to pay down a material proportion of our post-Lagan debt by the year-end.
“Our company is in excellent shape and well placed to benefit from the medium-term growth predicted for our markets. We have a strong asset base, a highly cash-generative business and a talented management team, all of which give us a significant competitive advantage whatever the market conditions.
“We are confident of making further progress in the current year.”
