Robertson’s earnings leap amid staffing rise

Robertson Group, owner of four construction businesses in Scotland and three in England, has posted a surge in pre-tax profits to £11.5 million in its latest trading year, along with a 15 per cent jump in the headcount to 1,700.
Bill Robertson, founder and executive chairman of Robertson GroupBill Robertson, founder and executive chairman of Robertson Group
Bill Robertson, founder and executive chairman of Robertson Group

It compared with a profit of £382,000 last time. Capitalising on good trading conditions, Robertson, which has added civil engineering and business services to the portfolio, also produced record sales of £288m in the year to end-March, up from £251m.

Bill Robertson, founder and executive chairman, said: “These results are testament to the work the group has undertaken in the past five years.

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“I believe our regional business model has been our strength in recent times, where each autonomous business can react to their own local markets in good times or bad, and is under no pressure to grow unless good value can be gained from their workload.”

Robertson, who founded the business in Elgin, said a strength of the company was that over 60 per cent of its revenues were generated where profit margins have been historically low.

“There are fewer players in the market and more frameworks and opportunities to work on with clients and their advisers upfront,” he said.

Related to the increase in headcount, the group said that industry training and development of management and workers hadn’t kept pace with market demands.

“We have taken a proactive approach in investing in youth training and development,” Robertson added.

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