M Group Services reports £40m underlying profit

Minerva Equity, the holding company for M Group Services the infrastructure specialists, delivered an underlying £40m profit in the year to March 2021. M Group Services chief executive Jim Arnold described the pre-exceptional and amortisation profit as 'a resilient performance'.

M Group Services performance was also supported by £29m in deferred VAT payments and £24m in Covid job retention grants. Yet despite Covid disruption, revenues only slipped by 3% to £1.26bn as a result of a strong performance by its infrastructure business which succeeded in trading with very little disruption.

The Group recorded revenue growth in two critical areas, water and telecoms where turnover rose to £259m, up £21m on 2020. And while the transport divisions revenues were slightly down on 2020 as a result of the slowdown in aviation, rail showed good growth.

Key telecoms player

M Group Service's telecoms division provides a full end to end service to fixed, mobile and private operators, focusing on the design, build and maintenance of telecom infrastructure.

Avonline Networks, Morrison Telecom Services, Magdalene and the recently acquired Waldon Telecom make up the strength of M Group's telecoms division providing services in the UK and Ireland.

Avonline is at the forefront of next generation high speed broadband, TV and telephone networks offering high quality coax, copper and fibre plus superfast broadband networks. Morrison Telecom Services works with the largest fixed and mobile operators in the UK and Ireland, operating in local communities to get people connected witha mix of FTTC, FTTH and G.Fast solutions.

Magdalene provides a wide range of services including Fibre to the Tower and best-in-class large scale solutions including satellite, private LTE solutions and network outsourcing.

Waldon acquisition

M Group Services further strengthened their telecoms division with the recent acquisition of Waldon Telecom. The ADC specialist has long term relationships with some of the biggest players in the sector including Three, MBNL and CTIL.

In a market worth around £750m annually, this acquisition allows the Group to capitalise on the 5G rollout and further enhance its mobile offer. Jim Arnold, Chief Executive M Group Services, said the Group was delighted to expand its telecoms division and would be looking to integrate Waldon's ADC expertise with Magdalene's mobile technology solutions to provide a complete end-to-end solution for mobile clients.

Phil James, Managing Director of Waldon Telecom, added that becoming part of M Group Services Telecom Division would allow Waldon to leverage wider services across multiple sectors, supporting growth ambitions and allowing the company to become a large scale, turnkey partner of choice in mobile telecoms

Clear strategy

The Waldon acquisition and 2021's underlying profit are another example of the Group's clear future plans and financial capacity. Maximising synergies and providing long-term and high-quality infrastructure services underpin the Group's resilient 2021 performance.

It's also worth noting that the latest figures don't reflect the recent acquisition of Skanska UK last April. Now rebranded as Milestone Infrastructure, Skanska had a £320m turnover before they became part of M Group Services.