Engineering and construction contractors Decmil Group and Calibre Group have both predicted a positive outlook after diversifying their businesses to cope with the mining services slowdown
Decmil, which achieved a sixth consecutive year of record profit in 2012-13, expects to benefit from diversification moves over the past two years.
Calibre, which suffered a large fall in profit last year, believes it’s over the worst of its problems.
It expects its full-year revenue to be around last year’s figure of $711 million.
At Decmi's annual general meeting today, chairman Giles Everist told shareholders that despite the soft market conditions and an industry-wide slowdown, the steps the group had taken over the past two years to diversify and strengthen the business were paying tangible dividends.
“Through both acquisitions and our own build-own-operate strategy, we have reduced our reliance on securing one-off projects from the resources sector," Mr Everist said.
He said Decmil started the current financial year with an order book of about $420 million, which would "provide the basis for another positve year".
Addressing a quiet room of shareholders at Calibre’s AGM, chairman and acting managing director Ray Horsburgh said 2013 had been a difficult year for the company but remained optimistic about future prospects.
Mr Horsburgh said Calibre finished the financial year 2013 with “88 per cent of last year’s revenue locked in”.
“The company is continuing to access a greater proportion of revenue from the ongoing asset management and operational support phase of the asset lifecycle,” he said.
Mr Horsburgh said the company had maintained a sound balance sheet and solid cash position, enabling it to significantly lower its operating cost base.
At the end of the meeting, Ray Munro was overwhelmingly re-elected as director of the company.
The vote to adopt a remuneration report for the year ending 2013 was also passed.
