Galliford Try Holdings PLC on Wednesday said annual profit almost doubled as revenue improved, prompting it to lift its final dividend for the year.

In the financial year that ended June 30, the Uxbridge, England-based construction company said pretax profit rose 87% to £10.1 million from £5.4 million a year earlier.

This was because revenue rose 13% to £1.39 billion from £1.24 billion.

As a result, Galliford Try opted to raise its final dividend payment for the year by 29% to 7.5 pence from 5.8p.

This was alongside an interim dividend of 3.0p, taking the total financial 2023 dividend to 10.5p, up 31% from financial 2022.

Galliford Try also declared a special dividend of 12.0p per share to be paid in October, as previously announced, following the resolution of a long running dispute concerning three contracts with entities owned by a major infrastructure fund.

It said in June that settlement terms were agreed to resolve the dispute.

Looking ahead, Galliford Try said it has an improved outlook, noting a ‘high quality’ £3.7 billion order book compared to £3.4 billion a year earlier, which it said was positioned across its chosen sectors and with 92% of financial 2024 revenue ‘already secured’.

It expects pretax profit for its financial 2024 to be at the upper end of the current range of analyst estimates.

‘Galliford Try continues to perform strongly and we are making good progress on our sustainable growth strategy, of risk managed controlled growth - supporting our financial and non-financial targets to 2026,’ said Chief Executive Bill Hocking.

‘Our high quality order book provides visibility and security of future workloads. Our business is not exposed to the short term economic cycle as our sectors are critical to the UK’s future growth. Together with our excellent people and our strong balance sheet, this gives confidence in our ability to deliver our sustainable growth strategy to 2026 and beyond and continue to provide long-term sustainable value for our stakeholders.

‘We are encouraged that the momentum in the business has carried into the first quarter of the new financial year and our expectations for the full year to June 2024 have now increased.’

Shares in Galliford Try were up 2.6% to 213.00 pence each in London on Wednesday afternoon.

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