The builders of Ireland's tallest office block, the EXO in Dublin, Bennett Construction last year sustained a €89m hit to its Irish business due to the impact of Covid-19 shutdowns here on the construction industry.
That is according to new accounts for Bennett (Construction) Ltd which show that pre-tax profits declined by 26% to €5.76m in the 12 months to the end of March last year.
The filings show that the Covid-19 impact on the Co Westmeath based business’s Irish revenues resulted in a decline of €89m or 38% from €229.83m to €140.73m.
However, the overall drop in revenues for the Bennett Construction business was cushioned by a strong performance in 'Rest of Europe’ where revenues increased by 78.5% from €47.09m to €84.07m.
The strong ‘Rest of Europe’ performance resulted in overall group revenues reducing by 19% from €276.93m to €224.8m for the year under review.
The EXO, Ireland’s tallest office development at 17 storeys in height at the end of the North Quays, Dublin is one of the group’s build projects.
In a boost to its business, Bennett Construction was last month named Preferred Bidder on the Royal College of Surgeons’ Ireland (RCSI) Connect project.
The project consists of the construction of a new six storey building above ground and two storey below ground for the Royal College of Surgeons on St. Stephen’s Green of circa 13,000m2.
Last month, the group commenced construction work on ‘Project Living’ at Osier Way in London in a residential scheme made up of 196 residential units in 3 blocks ranging in height from 6 to 12 storeys in height.
The directors said that the revenue decline last year was due to the impact of Covid-19 and lockdown related site closures during the year.
They said that "non-essential site closures continued for a period beyond the year end and will impact the current year accordingly".
The Bennett Group today has a broad portfolio of successfully completed projects across a range of sectors including residential, hospitality, commercial, industrial, healthcare and pharmaceutical.
The group last year recorded post tax profits of €5.09m after paying corporation tax of €669,941.
The Bennett Group was established in 1917 in Mullingar and numbers directly employed by the business last year and numbers directly employed reduced from 141 to 132 and staff costs last year decreased from €11.98m to €10.76m.
The firm received €617,356 in Covid-19 wage supports.
Directors' pay reduced from €1.45m to €1m.
The company’s cash funds last year increased from €69.72m to €113.92m.
At the end of March last year, the company’s shareholder funds totalled €53.47m.
