New Zealand-listed infrastructure consultancy Opus has reported lower revenue and profits for 2015.
Revenue of $505.2m was down 6% on prior year. While profits were down 36% to $16.7m.
“It is a challenging environment, not one for the fainthearted but our market diversification and continuous improvement programmes are mitigating the downturn in some markets and helping the business thrive in others,” says chairman Kerry McDonald.
The company says market conditions remained tight in New Zealand with competitive pricing across all sectors, but earnings actually increased.
“This was primarily a result of the improvement work we put into the New Zealand business,” says chief executive, Dr David Prentice.
The United Kingdom business achieved its best ever performance with revenue up 30% to $64.3m and operating profit up 133% to $2.7m.
“Performance was underpinned by several years of improvement programmes and our strategy of targeting rail and road transportation, buildings and water opportunities for key clients such as Hertfordshire Country Council, Network Rail, and the Environment Agency,” says Dr Prentice.
Lower oil prices hit the company hard in Canada.
”To address the significant shortfall in revenue, we took early steps to implement cost saving measures, including a reduction in employee numbers of 98, at a total restructuring cost of around $700k,” Prentice says. “Key to this was the objective of balancing short term profitability with long term sustainability and capability.”
Australia was similarly hit by resources prices.
