Siteserv turnover increases almost a quarter to €171m

Siteserv, the utility support services group owned by businessman Denis O'Brien, has increased its turnover by almost a quarter over the past year.

The group produced a pretax profit of €6.9 million on a turnover of €171 million during the eight months to the end of 2013, according to accounts filed recently.

The directors’ report accompanying the accounts said that unaudited results for the group’s businesses for the two most recent 12-month periods showed an underlying increase in revenue of about 23 per cent.

Mr O’Brien bought the Siteserv business for €45 million in 2012 using an Isle of Man company called Millington. The sale involved the State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation getting just €40 million of the €150 million it was owed by the former plc.

Since its acquisition the group has begun a policy of “geographic and sectoral diversification” and in the last eight months of 2013 developed its business in the UK and the Caribbean region, while also working on important contracts with Irish Water (for which it installs water meters) and UPC. Group company Sierra is to work as UPC’s sole provider of residential services in the Republic, according to the accounts.

Digicel sales

The group is also positioning itself as the infrastructural services company to Mr O’Brien’s Digicel telecoms group, with Jamaican operations set up by Siteserv in 2013. The accounts show that during the last eight months of 2013 the group made sales of €1.8 million to Digicel and purchases of €522,000.

The directors forecast a turnover for this year of €300 million and said the group currently employed more than 3,000 people in its five businesses: Sierra, Deborah Services, RoanKabin, EventServ, and Holgate. Employee costs in the eight-month period were €80.9 million.

New contracts

The group said it had won significant new contracts with Scottish Power, Glastonbury, Electric Ireland and Giro D’Italia as well as Digicel and Irish Water.

The turnover for the eight-month period was €171.2 million, compared with €184.6 million in the 14 months to the end of April 2013. Turnover in the final eight months of 2013 was €51 million in the Republic and €111 million in the rest of the world.