UK construction group Carillion has struck a cautious tone over the potential impact of the referendum result on businesses in the country.
The company, which is involved in construction as well as support services, said:
The referendum vote in favour of the UK leaving the European Union has obviously created uncertainty for the UK economy as a whole and therefore for businesses generally, including Carillion, and it is clearly too early to predict the extent to which businesses will be impacted by this result. However, Carillion has no significant operations in Mainland Europe and prior to the referendum we undertook extensive work to assess the possible impact on our business of a vote to leave and we have put in place robust plans to manage this outcome.
This came as the company unveiled a £240m contract in Oman, which has helped to maintain the size of its order book at a constant £17.4bn
Regarding its support services business, Carillion said:
With our support services order book and pipeline remaining strong, we are on track to achieve both revenue and margin growth for the full year, in line with previous guidance and with our strategy of growing this segment of our business, which we expect to contribute nearly two thirds of the Group’s total operating profit. Overall, we continue to believe that the outlook for our support services activities remains positive, driven by the demand for infrastructure services and the continued outsourcing of facilities management in the UK, supported by a good pipeline of opportunities in Canada and the Middle East.