Doctus Plc, the Salford, Manchester-based consultancy group has reported a strong year’s results with pre-tax profits of UKP11m, up 35% on 1989, on turnover that rose 10% to UKP145m. Chairman Brian Blake reports that the profit increase has been achieved by organic growth. The core management consultancy division, which has British Nuclear Fuels and Scottish Hydro Electric among its clients, reported 124% growth. Doctus Consulting Europe has been launched and new contracts have been won in Portugal and Benelux. Further expansions are afoot in Africa and Asia with new projects in Zimbabwe and Taiwan, and Doctus is involved in a joint venture to build sports stadia in the UK. In the US, the marketing consultancy division has been streamlined. The personnel division has expanded organically in the UK and overseas and signed contracts with Thorp at Sellafield for Roevin. And Roevin has agreed its first franchise in Newcastle, with a further one to be signed in Vancouver, Canada, as part of a planned programme of 12 franchises in the current year. The Roevin Toco joint venture in Tomsk (CI No 1,469) has signed a timber contract with a German harvesting contractor – says Alan Greenough, executive director at Doctus and responsible for Roevin Toco, this will enable the testing of the routes out of Russia and generate the cash to get out the next batch of computers. MSN, which deals with redundancy and outplacement is benefitting from the current economic conditions. Two new divisions – Doctus Technology Services and Environmental Consultancy – were formed in September and have been integrated into the management and accounting systems of the Doctus group both are reported to be trading satisfactorily. Net current assets for the group are flat at UKP11.5m. Earnings per share for the year were 18.07 pence, up 13%, and a final dividend of 2.72 pence per share has been declared.
