United Living suffers £11.5m pre-tax loss

Legacy claims combined with losses on some onerous contracts have pushed United Living to a pre-tax loss of £11.5m for the year to 31 March 2022.

The contractor did not give more information on the legacy claims themselves, except for saying that they were regarding construction contracts. But legacy claims refer to charges or losses on jobs which could be the result of disputes with other parts of the supply chain.

The company said the losses from onerous contracts were the result of acquiring its site management branch United Living Management.

The £11.5m pre-tax loss for the year to 31 March 2022 follows a £4.7m loss in the prior financial year.

Turnover at the company for the year to 31 March 2022 increased to £265.4m from £225.8m.

The contractor mainly works in the affordable-housing, build-to-rent and maintenance sectors.

In total, it said it had suffered exceptional costs of £12.9m in the latest period, caused by issues including “costs arising from insolvent subcontractors” and its own restructuring.

The number of redundancies it made in the period is not stated in the accounts, but United Living had 525 staff throughout 2020/21 and 482 on average in 2021/22.

United Living said it is “cautiously optimistic” about its ability to deliver growth in the coming years.

Chief financial officer Ole Pugholm said: “The markets that the group operate in have strong long-term visibility and will grow as a result of strong tailwinds from an increased focus from regulators and the public on sustainability and continued efforts towards decarbonisation.”

He said the firm was hoping for both organic growth and acquisitions. “There are significant opportunities for our businesses, and we are well placed, with our breadth of services, to benefit from these market dynamics,” he added.