PM Group, the Tallaght-headquartered international construction project delivery company, said its operating profit fell 23 per cent to €33.9 million as it invested in expansion against the backdrop of heightened inflation and some large projects came to end.
Total revenues declined by 7.5 per cent to €566 million, including pass-through revenue where it carries equipment and contract costs on behalf of clients, it said in a statement on Thursday. Underlying professional services fees were in line with 2022, it said.
The group employs 3,527 people across Europe, North America and Asia – almost 40 per cent of whom are shareholders in the business.
Last year, 56 per cent of its business was on behalf of multinational clients in Ireland, while the remainder was overseas.
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Key Irish projects last year included work on a €360 million active pharma ingredient manufacturing facility in Blanchardstown, northwest Dublin, and the design of a new distillery for Irish Distillers in Midleton, Cork.
While IDA Ireland said in July that the flow of multinational investment into Ireland slowed in the first half of this year, PM Group chief executive Anthony O’Rourke said that his business has seen “an uptick” in its projects pipeline in recent months.
The UK market continued to be impacted by Brexit and political uncertainty resulting in limited investment by multinational clients, it said. Notwithstanding these challenges, PM Group’s UK team successfully supported the delivery of projects for Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson in Belgium and for Thermo Fisher in the UK, it said.
Mr O’Rourke said he expects a pickup in activity in the UK next year, driven by political clarity after the recent general election.
In continental Europe, 2023 saw strong growth in the Benelux region with key clients while it grew its service offering in the German market with the expansion of a new office in Frankfurt.
Last year was “challenging” for the company’s Polish operations, with the ongoing effects of the war in Ukraine and high inflation causing a slowdown, it said.
PM Group continued to expand in the US, growing its Philadelphia office and opening a new location in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, its fifth office in the country.
The group currently generates about 5 per cent of its revenues in the US and “our number one priority is to grow that to a double-digit percentage,” said Mr O’Rourke, who took over as chief executive in January, succeeding Dave Murphy.
PM Group’s chief financial officer, Rosita Fennel, said the business had some €100 million of cash reserves as of the end of last year, giving it a platform to invest and grow.
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