Revenues at businessman, Denis O’Brien’s international engineering group, Actavo last year increased by 8.7pc to €214.62m boosted by a strong Irish performance.
New accounts show that pre-tax profits at Actavo Group Ltd declined by 23 per cent to €5.58 million due mainly to a sharp jump in staff costs and a rise in non-core operating costs.
The directors state that the continuing core business reported revenues of €214.6 million up 8.7 per cent on the prior year “with a strong performance in Ireland”.
They state that gross margin of €35.7 million was up 2.8 per cent over the prior year.
The accounts show that Irish revenues increased by 16pc from €105.76 million to €122.74 million while 'rest of world' revenues remained flat at €91.88 million.
The group’s operating profits declined only marginally from €8.67 million to €8.59 million and €2.48 million in non-core operating costs reduced profits along with €479,000 in finance costs.
On the €2.48 million in non-core operating costs, a note attached to the accounts states that non-core items obscures the underlying performance trends in the business.
The note states that the costs “relate to group debtor provisions of €1.48 million and one-off related provisions for legacy matters which the group intends to fully defend against”.
The group recorded post-tax profits of €4.18m after incurring a corporation tax charge of €1.4 million.
The directors state: “We are pleased with 2023 business performance overall and the stability of all our divisions across the Group.”
They state that “2024 continues to perform strongly. In 2024 the group will fully exit underperforming contracts and business units.”
They add: “We are confident of continuing to grow the business into the future.”
The accounts disclose that the group disposed of its Saudi Arabia arm, Saudi Arabia Actavo Company Ltd in August of this year.
Actavo is an international engineering group operating across Ireland, the UK, Middle East and the Caribbean region and its global workforce of over 1,900 people are engaged in network infrastructure construction, in-home telecommunications solutions, industrial & technical support services modular building and event solutions “to many of the world’s leading companies and government agencies”.
The directors state that at December 31st 2023, “the Group maintained a strong financial position” with cash of €18 million while shareholders’ funds have improved by 18.7 per cent to €29.9 million.
Numbers employed last year increased from 1,774 to 1,849 made up of 1,583 in operations and 266 in administration.
Staff costs last year increased by 62 per cent from €79.22 million to €135.62 million that included wages of €123.69 million and also included ‘other compensation costs’ of €1.87 million.
The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €3.25 million,
Pay to directors, including pension contributions, decreased by 12.5 per cent to €1.2 million.
Under the heading of ‘contingent liability’ the accounts state that during 2022, the company received a claim relating to the financial years 2017, 2018 and 2020 Siteserv B.V. from the Dutch tax authorities.
The note states: “The company intends to defend the matter fully. In the director's view, at the balance sheet date, there is a possible but uncertain obligation arising and thus has been treated as a contingent liability.
"At the approval of the financial statements, management do not have an estimate of the likely claim amount. The directors will continue to monitor this matter.”
