Consultant Faithful + Gould has warned that it expects “some impact” on its performance in 2020, as it revealed an increase in turnover and profit for the year to 31 December 2019.
The company, part of the SNC-Lavalin Group, enjoyed a 5.3% increase in revenue to £177.6m in 2020, up from £168.6m in 2019. Operating profit jumped to £18.3m, an increase of 19.8%, and operating margin rose to 10.3%.
A strong performance from the UK helped to compensate for lower profit in the firm’s Middle East branches as revenue fell due to weak demand among concerns about the oil price.
Faithful + Gould said it was “resilient” and “confident” about the year ahead but that covid-19 was “significantly impacting the world as we know it” bringing long-term challenges in some of the company’s key markets.
It added that it has taken “early and decisive action” to match its costs with the expected performance of the company by examining its expenditure, using the government’s business support packages including the Job Retention Scheme, temporary salary reductions for the majority of employees, and redundancies in “limited circumstances”.
