LONDON (Alliance News) - Fulcrum Utility Services Ltd said Wednesday that it has decided to take management of service delivery in-house, a move it said it expects to boost profits from next year onwards.
The UK-based energy services company, which designs and project manages connections to gas pipelines for customers, said that by directly managing service delivery it will have direct control from design through to installation across England and Wales.
Fulcrum had up until now had a management agreement with McNicholas Construction Services Ltd, which it said will now come to an end at the end of March. It said the decision has been mutually agreed by both parties.
Fulcrum said the main benefits of the move include an "enhanced customer proposition and increased profitability".
"The move to take direct management of our delivery is a logical evolutionary step in enabling us to provide the best customer service in the industry. Operating as a single organisation will make us more agile and allow us to accelerate some of our other plans such as improving our multi-utility capability," said Chief Executive Martin Donnachie in a statement.
Fulcrum said the changes are expected to be profit enhancing from the financial year ending March 2016 onwards. It said the move is not expected "significantly" increase costs, and profitability for this year remains in line with expectations.
"Due to the company's more selective approach to tendering for more profitable work, margins are continuing to strengthen and revenues for this year will be approximately 5% lower than previously expected," it said.
Just last month, Fulcrum said its pretax loss narrowed in the first half to end-September, despite lower revenue, as it brought costs down.
The company's shares were untraded Wednesday morning. The shares were last traded at 7.65 pence.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; rowenaharrisdoughty@alliancenews.com; @rharrisdoughty
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