Bovis made £16.4m loss in final year under Lendlease name

Lendlease Construction (Europe) plunged to a £16.4m pre-tax loss last year after making more than £30m in provisions against legal claims.

The contractor – last week renamed Bovis Construction (Europe) following its sale to US private equity giant Atlas Holdings – published results showing it dropped into the red in the 12 months to 30 June 2024.

This followed a pre-tax profit of £11.9m in the prior year, with the company citing the adverse impact of “provisions made against historic contracts”.

It added that it no longer used the same contract type and that costs were expected to be “substantially recovered”.

Revenue fell 7.5 per cent to £471.0m in the latest year as a result of “depressed bidding activity over the Covid-19 period”.

The contractor said the market remained “challenging” in 2023/24 but that its balance sheet remained “stable”.

The company had net assets of £190.1m at year-end, down from £211.3m 12 months earlier, and cash balances of £91.2m, down from £94.1m.

Headcount dropped slightly, with the firm’s average number of employees at 976 last year, compared with 1,110 in the prior period. Staff costs fell 11 per cent to £114.5m

The contractor said it had been named as preferred bidder on “several very exciting projects” in the year to last June. These included constructing a new stand for Crystal Palace Football Club in London and creating a commercial building at Manchester Mayfield.

It said it had £2.8bn of “secured and preferred” project work that provided a “solid foundation for future growth”.

The Lendlease UK construction business was rebranded as Bovis following the completion of its £35m sale to US-based investment firm Atlas Holdings last month.

The historic Bovis brand was first established in 1885. Australian-owned Lendlease acquired Bovis Construction in 1999, renaming it Bovis Lend Lease before dropping the Bovis name in 2011.

Connecticut-headquartered Atlas operates a portfolio of 26 companies across multiple sectors including construction services and building materials. It generates about $16bn (£12.5bn) in annual revenue and employs 50,000 people.