John F Hunt client collapse: financial resilience and project risk notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Demolition and land remediation contractor John F Hunt Group reported 8% turnover growth to £193.3m for the year to 31 March 2025, but operating profit fell to £4.9m and pre-tax profit slumped to £101,000 after a £5.1m exceptional hit from the collapse of a major London hotel developer client. Core contracting arm John F Hunt Ltd lifted turnover to £102.4m and pre-tax profit to £1.6m before the write-down, while regeneration turnover rose to £83.5m but operating profit dropped to £3.3m. Finance director Ian Saville warned turnover will fall this year due to delays on several large projects, despite £29.7m net cash and the group’s transition to an employee ownership trust with £5.56m contributed.
Technical Brief
- Gross margin compressed to 16.1% from 17.5%, indicating tighter pricing and/or higher delivery costs.
- Exceptional £5.1m bad-debt charge arose from collapse of a single London hotel developer client.
- Group turnover has more than doubled in five years, from £81m (2021) to £193.3m (2025).
- John F Hunt Ltd’s turnover rose to £102.4m from £89.2m, confirming it as the largest division.
- Regeneration arm delivered £83.5m turnover but saw operating profit fall to £3.3m from £5.0m.
- Asbestos consultancy posted a £366,000 loss on £4.9m turnover, with surveying rates “continually being squeezed”.
- Net cash position remained strong at £29.7m, only slightly down from £31.2m year-on-year.
- Directors contributed £5.56m to the new employee ownership trust during the year, affecting cash deployment options.
Our Take
Within our 396-item Infrastructure set, relatively few London-based contractors show John F Hunt Group’s combination of rapid turnover growth from 2021 and a net cash position near £30m, which suggests it is better placed than many peers to absorb a one-off £5.1m client collapse hit.
The split performance between John F Hunt Ltd and John F Hunt Regeneration in the 2025 year mirrors a pattern in other UK project contractors in our database, where regeneration and enabling-works arms tend to carry higher operating margins but are more exposed to single-client shocks on large schemes.
Directors’ £5.56m contributions into the employee ownership trust, alongside strong cash reserves, likely give John F Hunt additional flexibility in bidding and risk allocation on London projects compared with more highly leveraged rivals appearing elsewhere in our Projects-tagged coverage.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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