Mixed first quarter for Bam

The weaker British pound and divestment of some non-core Dutch activities in 2016 affected revenue in the construction and property division of Dutch contractor Bam, while its civil engineering arm was also said to have been hit by reduced activity at Bam International.

CEO Rob van Wingerden said, “We continue to have a good momentum delivering our strategy ‘Building the present, creating the future’.

“The refocusing of the German construction business is well under way and we are seeing benefits from the restructuring of our Dutch construction and property activities.”

He added, “In April, at our Capital Markets Event, we showed how we are enhancing the quality of our project portfolio, strengthening our One Bam culture, and implementing our digitalisation strategy.”

He said the company was also illustrating its capabilities in PPP (public-private partnerships) and on-shore international projects.

“In what is traditionally our slowest quarter, the performance of the sectors was mixed. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic and realistic about most of our markets.”

For the full year 2017, he said the group continued to expect revenue to be slightly lower than last year, and the adjusted result before tax to be higher than the 2016 level.

He said Bam expected a significantly lower restructuring charge compared to 2016.

In the construction and property division, the company said that revenue development mostly reflected the weaker pound and the divestment of some non-core Dutch activities in 2016.

However, it said that “nearly all activities contributed to the positive result for the quarter”, especially Dutch residential and non-residential property development, and Belgium.

It said Dutch house sales were up by 9% to 635 homes. In Germany, there was a small negative result, as it had expected. This was said to be caused by under recovery of overheads as activities were being refocused.

The order book was reported to have reduced slightly in the UK and in Germany, while Bam was said to be “maintaining its tender discipline”.

While reduced activity at Bam International and the weaker pound were said to have affected the civil engineering revenue, the lower sector result was blamed on the absence of a strong contribution from Germany, which had been present in the first quarter of 2016, and also a lower result in the Netherlands.

At Bam International, the transition from oil and gas towards on-shore projects was said to have led to under recovery of overheads. The order book increased mainly thanks to the UK and the Netherlands.