A hat-trick of acquisitions helps drive pre-tax profit at the ground engineering specialist to 拢83.7m

Keller Group had delivered a record 72% increase in pre-tax profit driven by acquisitions.

Pre-tax profit shot up to 拢83.7m for the year to 31 December compared with 拢48.8m the previous year. Group revenue at the ground engineering specialist was up 26% to 拢920.2m.

Keller made three acquisitions last year: Anderson Drilling in the US, Piling Contractors in Australia and Phi Group in the UK.

Justin Atkinson, chief executive, said: 鈥淭his was another outstanding year for the group, in which all four of our divisions increased their profitability and significantly improved their operating margins. In addition to the very strong organic growth generated across all our main markets, the three acquisitions made in 2006 performed even better than we expected at the time of purchase.

鈥淥ur increased scale and strong business model mean we are ideally placed to continue to perform well in our chosen markets and, whilst the outstanding 2006 result is unlikely to be matched this year, we are confident that 2007 will be another good year for the group.鈥�