Colemans posts highest revenue since 2020

Demolition contractor Colemans has reported its highest revenue in four years.

Newly published results for the firm, formerly known as Coleman Group and parent company of Coleman & Company, showed it turned over £20.5m in the year ending 30 April 2024.

The figure is up from the £13m posted in the prior year, and its highest level since the £25.8m posted in its 2020 financial year, after which it announced it would shrink its activity to between £12m-£15m annually.

In 2015, the firm turned over £30.3m.

Pre-tax profit also rose in its latest year, to £2.4m from £293,250 in 2023.

The specialist’s cash at bank and in hand was £4.5m, up from £3m in 2023.

Chief executive Mark Coleman said in a statement with the accounts: “The group is financially stable with no borrowings, the lowest gearing (zero) of any demolition contractor in the UK.”

He said the company was focused on “project delivery control, selective tendering, cash management and disciplined cost containment”.

Coleman added that the company had “built strong relationships with suppliers, and we outsource heavy plant and equipment, working only with market leaders in their respective fields”.

The Birmingham-headquartered group made almost half its 110 employees redundant in 2020 after a shopping centre scheme was scrapped.

Its latest accounts showed its headcount increased to around 72 in 2024, from 64 the year before.

In February 2016, four Coleman & Company employees – Michael Collings, Chris Huxtable, Ken Cresswell and John Shaw – died in the Didcot Power Station collapse. Five other people were injured.

A joint police and Health and Safety Executive investigation is still ongoing, more than eight years later.

In the new results the company repeated a statement used in previous years, stating that the cause of the collapse was still unknown and Colemans “continues to co-operate fully with all involved” in the investigation.

“Based upon rigorous inquiries undertaken by independent specialists and on professional advice, the directors do not believe the company is responsible for the cause of the incident,” it added.

The statement added that it was “impracticable” to estimate any financial liability that might arise for the company regarding the incident, but that it had adequate insurance cover to pay for it “should any liability attach”.