Smart buildings provider to record 2024 loss

London-listed smart buildings provider Aukett Swanke Group is set to record a loss in 2024 amid a change in focus. Although the company expects to break even for the six months to 30 September, an £810,000 trading loss in the first half of its financial year is likely to mean it will swing to a full-year loss broadly in line with this level. It reported a £28,000 trading profit in the same period last year. The company has doubled up on its cost reduction programme, launched in June this year, in order to reach £2m of annualised savings instead of the £1m it originally planned. It also reported the sale of the Old Torpedo Factory, securing an additional £2.5m capital for the firm. Around £1.4m of that was used to fully repay the outstanding mortgage and a further £230,000 to reduce the outstanding CBILS-backed loan to £440,000. The firm’s trading results took a hit from restructuring as it looks to establish itself as a leader in the provision of smart buildings services.  It said performance of newly acquired businesses in this field has been mixed. Vanti and Torpedo Factory Group had both added more than £2m of new contracts, while EcoDriver, which provides sensors, meters and proprietary software to monitor client sites, was also growing strongly from a low base. The group’s architecture arm Veretec continued to grow but design business Aukett Swanke “failed to make a positive contribution to the wider group” amid continuing delays with a number of projects, while smart building technology distributor Anders + Kern, which suffered as a result of two major suppliers being taken over, reduced its cost base and is reviewing its product range. Nick Clark, chief executive of Aukett Swanke, said: “The group has continued to make rapid progress in the second half, with the first sale of the Smart Core building operating system since the Vanti asset acquisition, and now the pending launch of EcoDriver’s AI product, developed in house over the first year of EcoDriver’s ownership by the group.” “To support this and other initiatives, in particular the continued development of the Smart Core building operating system, we need the other parts of the business to be performing well. The annualised cost reductions are designed to support group profitability while it develops and acquires the technologies required to become a global leader in designing, delivering and operating smart, sustainable buildings and spaces.”