Bam Nuttall pays back furlough cash ‘through contracts’ as dividend declared
17 Jun 2021 By Ian Weinfass
Bam Nuttall has paid back a “substantial” part of its £4.2m furlough grant because of the nature of its contracts, the company has claimed.
Accounts for the civils firm released this week show it claimed the sum from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme during the 12 months to 31 December 2020. It also paid a £7.5m equity dividend in the period to its parent company down from the £10m the previous year.
Its Dutch-based owner Royal Bam did not pay a dividend to its shareholders for its 2020 year, and has said it is eyeing a UK expansion this year.
Bam Nuttall put a total of 668 of its 2,995 employees on the UK taxpayer-funded job support scheme during the period with “the majority” returning to work as it reopened sites that were temporarily shut due to the pandemic, it said.
A spokesperson for Bam Nuttall told Construction News that the furlough cash had been “substantially credited back to our government clients via the cost-reimbursable nature of our contracts”.
Cost-reimbursable contracts see contractors paid for the actual costs they incur on jobs. Furloughed staff would reduce such costs.
“Over and above the monies received, Bam Nuttall also topped up payments to our people affected by the furlough cap, making sure those on lower wages were provided with the most support,” she added.
Several companies in the sector, including Morgan Sindall, Balfour Beatty and Galliford Try publicly said they would repay their furlough cash when announcing reinstated dividends. None have stated this to be a consequence of their existing contracts.
Earlier this year there were calls for Lendlease to pay back its own furlough cash after it announced an AUD$103m (£57m) dividend, having previously made 15 per cent of its UK staff redundant.
Bam Nuttall’s accounts also showed that directors remuneration rose to £1.1m in 2020, up from £767,000 the year before. The firm changed CEOs halfway through the year, with Adrian Savory taking over from Steve Fox, who had been in charge for a decade.
Overall, the civils contractor grew its turnover to £844m, up from £770m in 2019. Its pre-tax profit fell to just £11.6m in the period, down from £15.3m in 2019. This gave it a margin of 1.4 per cent, compared to 2 per cent previously. It said its £3.4bn orderbook gave it a positive outlook for the future.