Northumberland construction company Merit Holdings is toasting rising revenues and profits on the back of lucrative contract wins within its health offshoot.
The Cramlington firm, which has almost doubled its workforce to more than 220 people in the last two years, has built up a reputation for working on complex, high-tech contracts across a range of sectors including healthcare, pharmaceutical, energy, manufacturing, retail, commercial and nuclear.
Less than two years ago the specialist engineering and construction firm – a former North East Company of the Year – launched Merit Health, to recognise its expertise in the health and life sciences sector. Since its launch the firm has won and completed a number of significant projects, including a £66m scheme in Stevenage and the expansion of the rapid response facility in Darlington for CPI.
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Now the firm – which constructs at least 75% of projects offsite at its Northumberland factory – has published accounts for the year ended June 30 2021, showing turnover of £41.8m, a significant rise on the £37.1m it posted for the prior 15-month period.
Similarly its operating profit jumped from £806,103 for the 15-months ended June 30 2020, to £1.043m for the following year.
CEO Tony Wells said the creation of the healthcare division has driven the growth.
He said: “Driving innovation and productivity has always been a key focus for Merit, integrating offsite construction into our offering in 2004 alongside opening our first offsite factory. The last three years however have provided the opportunity to completely rethink how complex facilities are designed and built. Following significant R&D and investment in an innovative design and build platform for high technology healthcare and biopharma applications, we now have a range of patent-pending, offsite manufactured products, of which 75% to 95% of the building can be manufactured in our Northumberland factories and transported to site for installation.
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“This year’s results demonstrate the increased uptake in these products, particularly for our specialist healthcare division, Merit Health, which was launched in April 2020.
“Merit Health has provided critical healthcare buildings here in the North East, designing and building Northumbria Trust’s new sterile services facility in just over a year and CPI’s new mRNA centre of excellence in just eight and a half months and also been awarded two large scale projects, to design and build Piramal’s new Antibody Drug Conjugate manufacturing facility in Grangemouth, as well as our largest ever project to date, to build Autolus’ new £66m CAR-T Cell Therapy Manufacturing facility in Stevenage.
“Using our platform, these buildings are being delivered in almost half the time compared to traditional methods and are designed with zero carbon emission, whilst achieving lower energy consumption and high quality environmental conditions required for healthcare and biopharma manufacturing.”
Looking ahead, Mr Wells said the firm is set to reach record revenues this year, and said the firm has supported 50 apprenticeships over the last six years. He said Merit has successful partnerships with Northumbria University and Newcastle University which have been key in supporting its graduate recruitment scheme, with over 20 graduates joining in the last two years.
He added: “We continue to be a key employer in the North East, now employing 225 staff, supporting the levelling up agenda through sustainable long-term career opportunities.
“We are expecting significant growth on the back of these new projects with record sales expected in 2022 and are expecting further dramatic increases in 2023 and beyond.”