LONDON (Alliance News) - Van Elle Holdings PLC on Thursday announced it has appointed Balfour Beatty PLC's Mark Cutler as its new chief executive while saying it expects "modest" revenue growth in its recently ended year.
Cutler has been serving at FTSE 250-listed Balfour Beatty as the managing director of its VINCI joint venture working on the High Speed 2 railway programme. Before that, he was MD of its UK regional construction and engineering businesses.
He will join by October, but geotechnical contractor Van Elle said it hopes to have him in place earlier than that.
Cutler replaces Jon Fenton, who announced his departure in November after a medical issue in his family. Fenton will be leaving Van Elle on May 18, and for the interim period it has appointed Stephen Prendergast as acting CEO until Cutler joins.
Prendergast, Van Elle said, has previously held interim management roles at Balfour Beatty and Network Rail.
Fenton announced his departure amid an attempt by former Chairman Michael Ellis to return to the company alongside other new directors, replacing existing management.
At an extraordinary general meeting convened by Ellis in mid-December, Van Elle shareholders rejected all of his resolutions.
In mid-January Van Elle said the liquidation of Carillion, for whom it carried out regular work, may negatively impact the company.
Since then it has been in talks over these projects, and Van Elle said Thursday it has agreed "satisfactory" terms to restart work on some Carillion contracts during the last quarter of Van Elle's financial year, which ended in April, though they will only have a "limited" effect on that year.
Looking at operating divisions, the Rail unit had a good second half, it said, contributing to its Specialist Piling division performing encouragingly in the last six months of its year.
In General Piling, revenue and and margins were lower in its second half after a strong first six months due to a slower market, Van Elle said.
Ground Engineering Services had a "challenging" second half due to severe weather delaying work in Scotland, but moving into its new financial year, Van Elle said it is optimistic this will improve.
Van Elle also said it expects to have to make a lower-than-expected exceptional bad debt charge of around GBP1.0 million for its recently ended year, compared to GBP1.6 million the year before. Cash generation at group level, it said, has continued to be strong.
It is expecting to report adjusted pretax profit around GBP10.5 million for its year just ended, compared to a reported pretax profit of GBP9.3 million in its prior year.
Van Elle shares were up 3.0% on Thursday at 83.94 pence each.
Balfour Beatty (BBY)
Van Elle (VANL)