Dorin Holdings // +44 (0) 191 214 0360 // Dorin Construction, Gilwood Mast, D & K Plant Hire

This is the time of year to look back on what we as a business have achieved during the past twelve months and consider our prospects for the coming year. Whilst reflecting on the past is the easy part; the skill is in looking to the future. Particularly now as after 12 years of uninterrupted economic growth we find ourselves in the midst of a recession.

During 2008 we have continued to show solid growth across all of our businesses, we increased our annual construction turnover to £13 million, our M&E turnover rose to £4.2 million and our plant hire turnover was £1.2 million, all of which were improvements on the previous year.

We have completed some excellent schemes and we continue to receive acclaim from our clients for the quality of our work. Schemes of note which we completed during the year included: Wydon Park Hexham, Ward Refurbishments at Rake Lane Hospital, Sycamore Lodge Care Home, and Ryhope Health Centre. We also completed some notable M&E contracts at Market Dock, Forth Banks and Cell C.

What of next year? The government has thrown its dice and injected money into the economy by way of a fiscal package (a small range of tax cuts) but it is doubtful whether these will be sufficient to prevent a very sharp economic slowdown. It is a sad indictment of the government that after presiding over such a vibrant boom they have so little in the piggy bank to provide meaningful help to the economy, the result is that we can expect a fairly harsh recession across the whole economy (as illustrated by the collapse of Woolworths) followed by tax rises in the future to pay for the current rescue package.

It is essential that any business manages its way through a recession rather than simply reacting to it, we must set meaningful and achievable targets that will sustain our business through the recession and set us up to enjoy the next period of growth.

As a group of companies we are all in this collectively, from the apprentice to the Managing Director a business must pull together, in such times we must aim to cut waste, remove all inefficiencies and focus on delivering our product in the most profitable way possible.

In the short term I am very pleased to report that our construction business has a successful December and that we have won a number of new schemes (see overleaf). These schemes will benefit the whole group as M&E and plant hire work will follow. The procurement of these schemes highlights the skill of our organisation in securing new work and credit must go to those involved in business development and estimating. Prior to December we had some concerns about job losses and potential redundancies, these schemes have allowed us to retain more staff and the focus must now be to build them as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible.

The challenge for 2009 is to build on December’s success and to continue to win new contracts across all of our businesses, compared to many of our competitors we are in a strong position with over £12 million turnover secured for 2009, however the pressure remains firmly on the estimating teams to ensure that we stay busy.

The directors know 2009 will be a tough year, however, we genuinely believe that we are in a strong position to tackle the challenge. Our business has changed for the better enormously over the last three years and credit for that must go to all staff and employees, if we continue to apply the same dedication during 2009 then we will continue to succeed and we will defiantly have a much better year than many companies.

Finally I would like to wish all staff and their families a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Richard Brown