Building and maintenance company, Rok, has announced its interim results.

They show Rok has delivered another period of strong growth in its core new build, repairs and maintenance activities with record revenues and profits.

Having started to reduce its exposure to commercial property development last year, the group has now decided to close the operation completely.

From its continuing operations, sales were up 37% to £546.7m and the operating profit of £12.9m was 33% better than for the same time last year. The board announced an Interim dividend of 1.15p.

Framework wins of £400m were up 10% on prior year. Total long term frameworks of £2.0bn were up 25% on year on year.

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The acquisition of Richardson Projects extends the group's social housing capability.

Commenting on the results, Stephen Pettit, Chairman, said: "Rok’s strategy remains unchanged but our business mix is evolving to focus on activities such as repairs, refurbishment and response maintenance which will produce higher margins in the economic environment in which we expect to be operating over the next few years.

"Our core building and maintenance operations have continued to perform strongly demonstrating that our strategy of locally delivered services on a national scale is a compelling proposition for customers. The decision to close and make full provisions for our development operation enables us to put the issues associated with it firmly behind us and gives us confidence that there will be no further adverse financial impact from this operation.

"We have planned for the period ahead and taken the necessary steps to ensure that Rok is well positioned to prosper. The visibility of our revenues is stronger than at any time in the group’s history and our framework agreements stand at record levels. Overall we are confident of a satisfactory outcome in the current year from our core building and maintenance activities. The Board believes the group is well placed to succeed in these more challenging economic times."

(GK/KMcA)