Shaw & Co, the specialist corporate finance advisory firm, has launched its latest free annual analysis of the Property & Construction (P&C) industry.

The ‘Shaw Report’, which segments nearly 3,200 businesses with earnings in excess of £1m by size and subsector to track their performance, profitability, debt levels and M&A activity, offers business leaders a powerful sector overview and benchmarking tool to aid their decision making.

Key findings include:

• Scale is King: 9% of the 3,184 companies analysed account for 58% of industry turnover. Achieving scale opens more options to compete for larger and more profitable projects.

• UK Buyers Dominate: 84% of the 186 M&A deals over the last 12 months were completed by UK buyers suggesting local market knowledge is an advantage when looking to scale quickly through a buy-and-build strategy.

• Consistent profit margins of between 11%-21% are achieved regardless of scale.

• The cost of capital has increased at a record pace, which will undoubtedly affect the sector.

A full copy of the report is available here

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