The UK construction operations of France’s Bouygues Group increased turnover by 5% to £420.3m in the year to 31st December 2020 (2019: £399.5m).
However, pre-tax profit at Bouygues (UK) was down 78% at £585,000 (2019: £2.6m) – “reflecting the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic”, said finance director Jean Luc Midena.
When the first lockdown came, Bouygues sites in the UK were closed from the end of March until the end of April, except for a cancer hospital considered to be a critical project.
Cash generated from operations during the year amounted to £34m, down from £50m in 2019.
Even before the pandemic struck, the year had started badly for Bouygues, with a different type of virus. On 30th January both Bouygues (UK) and its parent company Bouygues Construction were the target of a ransomware attack caused by malware. They had to shut down their IT systems as a precaution to prevent spread of the virus. However, the impact on operational and commercial activity was described as ‘very low’ and the security of the system was strengthened once back up.
Bouygues (UK) met its target accident frequency rate of 0.03 in 2020 (2019: 0.08), equivalent to one reportable accident per 2.9 million ‘man’ hours.
The average number of people employed by the company during the year rose to 1,081, up from 886 in 2019. The number working in management and administration shrank from 343 to 315, but this was more than offset by a rise in operations staff, from 886 in 2019 to 1,081 in 2020.
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