Construction innovator Merit is eyeing further growth and the potential to export abroad following a record year which saw revenues top £60m.
The Cramlington company is currently expanding its base at Admiral Business Park, creating a new high-bay extension at its base to add an extra 40,000sqft to its current floor space of 270,000sqft. As well as creating 50 new jobs to add to its 220-strong workforce, the height of the extension will enable clients to see their facilities before they are installed.
The extra space is needed following a string of contract wins, with more to come, as more companies become aware of its innovative construction skills, which sees Merit pre-assemble between 75% and 95% of a building at its factory, ahead of being shipped and installed at its final destination.
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The accounts for the year ended June 30, 2022, show revenues climbed 44% to £60.2m, while operating profit jumped from £936,660 to £4.42m. Ebitda also rose by 374% to £4.57m following a string of major project wins and completions, including the first phase of the UK’s first CAR T-cell and gene therapy manufacturing facility in Stevenage for Autolus Theraputics, and a manufacturing facility for CPI in Darlington.
Merit also spent 6% of its revenues on R&D, which managing director Tony Wells said is above both the UK and construction industry average. Mr Wells said the firm’s latest accounts demonstrate that it has gone past the proof-of-concept stage of its construction system with early-adopting clients.
Now the firm is in discussions with larger customers – and he said the possibility of exporting abroad also lies on the horizon.
Mr Wells said: “These results show that the business is now beyond a proof-of-concept stage and is delivering sustainable and profitable growth. Our approach and products are being chosen to deliver significant UK projects faster, more efficiently and more sustainably than traditional building methods.
“We are confident of maintaining our current growth path and winning further strategically important projects, as we continue to refine our products with a clear focus on innovation and automation. We’re investing in technology, automation, in people, in apprentices, in graduates and factories, to underpin future demand. We are also helping inward investment back to the UK where life science companies are choosing us over overseas competitors.
“We’re moving to a factory manufactured digital solution - it’s quite novel in the construction industry, and if you say you’re going to deliver in less than half traditional times not everyone believes you, quite reasonably. If you can show you can deliver, it becomes easier to demonstrate to the next level of people who want to look at new ways to deliver buildings.”
Looking ahead, Mr Wells said Merit will look to expand its Cramlington base, and also explore options to export overseas.
He said: “Could we go abroad and export? The ultrapod is an exportable product and we’ve deliberately developed it in that way so we could export. We do intend to export out of the factories here to other parts of the world and we are in active conversations. Could we eventually expand abroad? Maybe - but at the moment the focus is to expand locally.
“The next 12 months is going to be quite pivotal. We’ve got space to develop and we’ll target expansion ahead of growth for 2023/24.”
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