PM Group, the Irish-based international engineering and construction management company, grew its operating profit by 26 per cent last year to €43.9 million, aided by growth in the pharma sector due to the Covid-19 pandemic, its latest set of accounts show.
The group announced its financial results for the year ended December 31st, 2021, on Friday. Net assets increased 31 per cent to €145 million.
Overall revenue, including pass through revenue – where the group carries procurement and contract costs of behalf of clients – was €475 million, up 19 per cent. This performance was delivered following a strong increase in underlying fee revenue of 21 per cent.
Speaking after the publication of the results, the group’s chief financial officer Rosita Fennell said the Covid-19 pandemic had benefited the group financially.
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“The pharma sector generates about two thirds of our revenue, and the sector was very strong last year,” she said.
“Covid benefited us from a revenue perspective, but there was also a lot of cost involved in terms of ramping up our digital infrastructure and enabling remote working.”
This year will see PM Group employees around the world return to offices “in large numbers” as the company rolls out its hybrid working model. The development of digitally enabled tools will support employees to work flexibly.
Ms Fennell said the company would offer staff the option to work three days per week remotely.
“We would have been fully office based prior to the pandemic, but remote working has worked quite well,” she said.
“We see the benefit of trying to bring people back into the office so we’re offering people the opportunity to come in on a two day basis up to a five day basis.”
The group is employee-owned with more than 1,200 people holding shares in the business, up 20 per cent on the previous year.
PM Group’s workforce grew by 17 per cent to 3,500 people working across Europe, North America and Asia in 2021. The group’s international presence grew in 2021 with new office openings in the United States and Germany.
PM Group is currently working on a range of projects across multiple countries providing design, construction and project delivery solutions to clients in the pharmaceutical, food, mission critical, med-tech and advanced manufacturing technology sectors.
The company is creating 500 new jobs this year across a range of disciplines including engineering, construction, commissioning, data analytics, finance and IT. Of these, 300 positions will be based in Ireland. Recruitment for the new positions is already underway.
PM Group chief executive Dave Murphy said the biggest concern facing the business going forward is inflation, adding that it has been exacerbated by the Ukraine war.
“The immediate impact would be in terms of energy prices and fuel prices,” he told The Irish Times. “It is also affecting inflation and driving input prices. It does look like it us going to be with us for quite a while unfortunately.
“Many of our clients have genuine business needs in that region, but we haven’t seen our clients pull back in terms of any of their investments so we are still positive in terms of our jobs announcements.
“The first quarter of 2022 has seen the strong momentum we had at the end of 2021 sustained.”
The group continues to expand across all its markets with major projects undertaken for Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, J&J, Meta, MSD, Pfizer and Sanofi.
The group said the outlook for 2022 is positive with activity levels and backlog remaining strong. Group performance in the first quarter to March has maintained the strong trading momentum from 2021, with revenue and earnings up year-on-year.
