Demand for electric cars boosts Fulcrum

Fulcrum provides gas and electricity to major sites around the country

The Sheffield-based firm, which provides gas and electricity to major sites around the country, is set to install charge points up and down the country as the latest SMMT figures show a 20 per cent hike in demand for electric vehicles. Forecasts show that by 2040, the UK's vehicles will be 100 per cent electric, which offers a lucrative new market for Fulcrum.

Fulcrum's CEO Martin Harrison said: "We are talking to lots of different businesses up and down the country about installing electric charge points.

"We are talking to blue chip names and smaller, independent businesses. It's early days, but there has been such a swell in demand for electric vehicles.

"A number of car companies are coming up with hybrid vehicles and electric only. Electric vehicles make up just 5 per cent of the market at the moment. We have identified up to 30 opportunities already."

He was speaking as the group announced a 20 per cent leap in annual profits and said its order book is up nearly 40 per cent to £43m.

Revenue rose 19 per cent to £45m in the year to March 31 and underlying pre-tax profits rose from £6.5m to £7.8m.

Over the past year, Fulcrum won a £1.5m contract to install over 3km of gas infrastructure at Doncaster Sheffield Airport and a £500,000 contract to install 1km of specialist gas infrastructure at the University of Sheffield.

Talking about the Doncaster Sheffield Airport contract, Mr Harrison said: "A contract of this scale takes a while to land. It's a significant job. We'll be installing gas pipes and a whole new network around the airport."

On the Sheffield University deal, he said: "We are really pleased to be working with such a prominent business in the community. We will be upgrading the university's gas requirement."

The group's strong organic growth was supplemented by the acquisitions of The Dunamis Group and CDS Pipe Services earlier this year.

Fulcrum said these acquisitions were significant milestones in the development of the group and that both businesses are integrating well and have boosted both its service offering and in-house capabilities.

The results benefited from two months’ contribution from Dunamis, which was bought at the beginning of February. There was no contribution from CDS, as it was acquired at the end of March. On a like-for-like basis, adjusting for the Dunamis acquisition, sales rose 12 per cent and adjusted EBITDA increased 19 per cent to £8.7m.

The group has raised its final dividend by 10.5 per cent to 2.1p a share, reflecting its confidence in the future.

Chairman Philip Holder said: "This has been a milestone year for Fulcrum.

"We continued to reinforce our position, with strong organic growth in our core infrastructure and asset businesses, accelerated market share in electric and expansion of our in-house capabilities in specialist gas connections, following the acquisitions of Dunamis and CDS.

"We are encouraged by our strong order book and growing pipeline of opportunities across the group."

Mr Harrison said Fulcrum is committed to being the most customer-focused utility services partner.

"To gauge how well our customer-centric approach is being received, we request feedback on our performance on every project we deliver, which we use to develop our services.

"We continue to achieve an encouraging result, with 78 per cent of customers rating our service as ‘great’ (9 or 10 out of 10), an improvement of 5 per cent on the prior year and whilst we are pleased that an increasing number of customers rated us as ‘great’ we continue to push for ever higher levels of customer satisfaction."

Analyst James Fletcher at Cenkos said: "The group’s order book at the end of the year stood at £42.1m, demonstrating a strong final month of orders verses February's book of £38.3m.

"A recent £1.5m major project win at Doncaster Sheffield airport helped contribute to this uplift. Over the full year, the order book has increased 39 per cent year-on-year, with 17 per cent growth on an underlying basis, excluding Dunamis.

"We believe this underlying book growth also reflects increasing project size, with around 55 per cent being above £50,000 from 40 per cent historically. Dunamis is currently pitching on an array of opportunities not included in this order book, which show evidence of increasing client diversity and synergistic cross-referrals from existing Fulcrum clients."