Vinci Construction UK turned over £1.33m in 2024, unchanged from 2023, and made a pre-tax loss of £36,000.
Though the loss was marginal, and a solid improvement from the £51.4m and £43.5m pre-tax losses of the previous two years, it was still another loss.
Operating loss, before financial income, was £15.4m, compared to 2023’s £65.8m operating loss.
Vinci Construction UK comprises Vinci Building, Vinci Facilities and Taylor Woodrow and is wholly owned by Vinci SA of France.
Vinci Building turned over £606m, with five of the six business units performing well but one suffering a loss mainly due to a fixed price student accommodation project on a price agreed back in 2021.
While Vinci Building made an operating profit margin of 1.8%, that reduced to just 0.9% after interest resulting from further provisions made against legacy fire and cladding claims.
The problems seem to be at Vinci Facilities, which operated at a loss for a third successive year, with a minus 3.2% operating profit margin.
“This was the result of recognising historic losses related directly to the completion of our Ministry of Justice building framework projects and the extreme application of healthcare PFI contract terms,” explained chief executive Scott Wardrop in the 2024 accounts report.
“The contracts under legacy PFI contract terms have proved very difficult to manager and operates,” he said, “with severe tensions between Client and ProjectCo, in addition to the ProjectCo and its subcontractors,” he said.
In the 2023 report he had been even more blunt, describing a healthcare PFI hard service contract in Coventry as “toxic”.
However, he said that things are now on the mend. “The underlying facility management business, our defence portfolio and the main building solutions businesses are operating with positive returns and with the steps taken over the last three years, 2025 will show the true underlying performance,” Wardrop added.
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