By Margaret Taylor, Business correspondent
TURNOVER and profits at Perth civil engineering firm I&H Brown plummeted in
the year to September 2018 as a combination of uncertainty in the onshore
wind sector and a poor performance in its Warrington base took their toll
on the business.
Having already seen revenues slide by 25 per cent in the previous reporting
period, the family-run firm reported a further 28% reduction to £39.5
million while pre-tax profits fell by 88% to £277,000.
The profitability figure would have tipped into a loss had the firm not
recorded a £524,000 unrealised gain in the value of its investment
properties and a £392,000 unrealised gain in the value of investments in
companies including Serco Group and private bank Hampden & Co.
According to I&H Brown managing director Scott Brown, whose father Hardie
Brown and late uncle Ian Brown founded the firm in 1964, the business was
hit during 2017/18 by its civil engineering division being “less busy” as a
result of a reduction in onshore wind energy projects. This was
particularly noticeable in the first half of the year, when the impact of
lucrative subsidies being cut during the previous year was still being felt.
In addition, he said “a number of contracts” in its Warrington base, which
generates around half the firm’s civil engineering workload, “performed
badly in the period”.
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