Mitie posts profit rise, buys Interserve FM unit, continues EV push

0

Buildings services firm Mitie, on track to operating the UK’s biggest corporate EV fleet, today confirmed its £271m takeover of rival Interserve’s facilities management division, as it posted full year results.

In January Mitie committed to reaching net zero by 2025 across its operations. The firm plans to do so by selling decarbonisation as a service, modernising clients’ power systems, overseeing on-site power storage and renewables and implementing clients’ carbon strategies.

The company is converting 20 per cent of its 3,500 smaller vehicles to electric power. A spokesperson said it now has “450-plus EVs on the road and around 600 more orders in place, which will largely be delivered in 2020”. As such, it is currently on track to hit its 20 per cent by 2020 target, assuming no further lockdown disruption.

It hit its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets for 2020 a year early, posting 36,000 tCO2.

Announcing today pre-tax profits up 8 per cent to £69.9m and revenues 4 per cent higher at £2.17bn , group chief executive Phil Bentley said purchase of the Interserve unit would be funded out of proceeds of a £200m rights issue, plus an extended £250m loan facility.

The Interserve buy, said Bentley, “will be a transformative acquisition, expanding the scale of our business to create the UK’s largest facilities management company, and accelerate the delivery of Mitie’s long-term technology-led vision”.

Mitie deploys its 37,500 staff across premises including Heathrow and London City Airports, the Bank of England and the NHS.

Coronavirus has pushed sales since March 12 per cent lower, it said. With 6,900 of its 37,500 staff now furloughed and likely to stay so, the firm will pay no dividend this year. Directors took pay cuts of up to 30 per cent for the year.

Mitie’s results here.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here