The UK’s largest ground engineering contractor, Van Elle, has issued a trading update to the London Stock Exchange in which they outline planned redundancies. The company, based in Summit Close, Kirkby in Ashfield, says it has an unused funding facility of £11 million and has an order book valued at £36.8 million.
In its trading update, the company told investors that its group revenue for the year ending 30 April 2024 is expected to be £140 million, 12 per cent lower than the previous year on a like-for-like basis. The contribution to the group accounts from Rock & Alluvium Limited, which it acquired from Galliford Try last November, improved the overall figure to six per cent below last year’s figure.
“The group has identified a range of further cost saving measures, consisting of headcount reductions and efficiency projects, with targeted annualised savings in excess of £1 million”, the company said in its trading update.
Van Elle operate in three key markets: residential, including “integrated piling and foundation systems for national and regional housebuilders, retirement and multi-storey residential”; infrastructure, including “specialist ground engineering services to the rail, highways, coastal and flooding, energy and utility sectors”; and construction, a “full range of piling and ground improvement services to the commercial, industrial and residential sectors”.
“Both the housing and infrastructure sectors are widely expected to recover in the near term, and whilst timing remains uncertain, the group will benefit from increased volumes”, the company said in its trading statement, adding: “the Board remains conservative on the timing of a full recovery in the housing sector, but the group is seeing early signs of progress with order intake and rig utilisation increasing over the last three months.”
The company was founded 40 years ago, in 1984, and was listed on AIM – the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market, in late 2016.
In its last published financial reports, the company said it had 648 employees: 259 classed as administrative and 389 as operative. Today’s trading statement does not specify the number of planned redundancies. Van Elle has been approached for comment.
