Slam dunk for Barr as Olympics contract swells profits

PROFITS at construction group Barr jumped by 115 per cent after the Paisley-based firm netted a series of big contracts, including a £58 million deal to build London’s Olympic basketball arena.

The 12,000-seater stadium, which will be the third-largest venue at the 2012 games, is undergoing testing this week with a series of practice matches.

Barr’s basketball venue – commissioned in October 2009 – will also host the handball semi-finals and finals and then the Paralympic wheelchair basketball and rugby competitions.

The Scottish firm owns the stadium but will rent it to the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). The ODA would have been forced to pay £120m to buy such a venue outright.

Ongoing work for supermarket chains Sainsbury’s and Tesco also helped turnover at parent company Barr Holdings to surge by 50 per cent to £254m for 2010, according to accounts newly filed at Companies House.

The rise in revenues for 2010 followed a dip in 2009, with sales of £232m in 2008 and £294m in 2007.

Pre-tax profits leapt to £2.8m last year from £1.3m after there was no repeat of the £1.2m of restructuring costs from 2009.

The group, which is owned by Belfast-based Trench Holdings, revealed that its headcount decreased to 702 from 740, with the wage bill going down to £29.9m from £30.3m.

Barr’s construction business picked up a string of contracts during 2010, including the building of an £8m maintenance hanger for Irish budget airline Ryanair at Prestwick airport.

The firm signed a £35m deal with Sainsbury’s to build stores in Hawick and Strathaven, extend shops at Darnley and Hamilton and convert a Somerfield store at Saltburn, in North Yorkshire, for the supermarket operator.

Tesco commissioned the company to construct three new outlets, at Lesmahagow in South Lanarkshire, Tain in Ross-shire and Banchory in Kincardineshire, for a total of £13m. Other work carried out for the UK’s biggest grocer included building stores at Musselburgh and Yiewsley in Middlesex.

Turnover at its landfill sites in the west of Scotland slipped to £17.9m from £18.4m.

No-one from Barr was available to comment yesterday.

But, writing in the directors’ report, chairman William Cheevers said: “The current marketplace is challenging in all sectors. However, the group continues to develop its business and maintain its capital investment programme.”

He said the firm invested £1.2m, mostly in its quarry and environmental businesses, but that figure was down from £5.7m in the previous year.

Despite the challenging market conditions, Barr has continued to seal a host of deals this year, including fitting out a Waitrose supermarket in Newton Mearns, Glasgow, and building a Sainsbury’s store in Nairn, its first in the Highlands, which opened earlier this month.