Record annual turnover for Wates
The construction group, which built the Sandwell Aquatics Centre in Smethwick, has announced record annual turnover and its highest ever forward order book.
Wates Group achieved pre-tax profits of 33.7 million for 2022 on turnover of £1.89 billion. The order book was up 17 per cent to £8.35bn.
The family-owned group, which celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2022, worked on a number of significant projects in the West Midlands in 2022.
It completed the aquatics centre in time for the Commonwealth Games. At the heart of this project, was the creation of local employment opportunities and supporting the local economy. Over half of all people working on-site during construction lived within 20 miles and more than £26m was placed in orders from businesses within 10 miles.
The state-of-the-art centre is now being transformed by Wates to create a legacy for community health, with facilities including an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a 25-metre diving pool, an outside football pitch, a gym, an urban park and children’s play area.
The group secured £2.8bn of new work during 2022 with the order book increasing in every one of its main divisions.
The development, construction and property services company completed more than £100m of work on its largest-ever construction project, the.£500m Envision AESC Gigafactory in Sunderland, which will make batteries to meet the growth in demand for electric vehicles.
Eoghan O’Lionaird, chief executive of Wates Group, said: “These results in our 125th year represent a really strong performance in the context of a challenging economic environment. Each of our divisions have contributed strongly to profitability and I am delighted to see such consistency across the group.
"2022 saw us continue our upward trajectory on turnover, reaching £1.89bn – the highest in our history. This high figure reflects the strong and stable family governance, hard work of people across the business, the scale of our ambition, our proven capability to manage large scale projects of strategic national significance, and our customers’ confidence in our ability to deliver for them, particularly in the public sector.
"We are in a strong, resilient position, with profitability across all our divisions, another record forward order book, and a solid cash balance. These results are a testament to the efforts of everyone at Wates."
