Turnover at Fife building and property firm Muir Group fell by more than a half from £111 million to £53.7m last year.
As a result, pre-tax profit was down by two-thirds from £13m to 4.38m at the group whose interests span from construction and homes to the Deer Park Golf & Country Club.
Company secretary John Watt said the turnover fall was mainly in construction with the Inverkeithing-based company not winning the planned number of contracts.
The decline was also in development where the 2015 activity level was exceptional.
In that year Muir’s figures were boosted by the sale of three property developments in Aberdeen along with a significant increase in private house sales.
The value of the group’s private housing sales in the year to January 2016 was down by a fifth from £31m to £24.7m, with the number of homes sold down by a similar level from 164 to 127.
The contracting turnover was almost halved at £16.8m and property development turnover was down by four-fifths at £8.6m.
In terms of principal risks and uncertainties , Mr Watt said that in contracting the group was susceptible to market conditions driving new property demand.
“A growing economy improves demand, however, political uncertainty and a contracting financial sector creates delay and deters investment,” he stated
In private housing, Mr Watt said the company has an adequate supply of plots with planning and a strategy to enhance this position, but the planning process remains “unpredictable and torpid.”
Mortgage availability and buyer confidence had improved significantly but “political upheaval and increased taxes on higher value housing increases risk and uncertainty.”
The risks in property development remained high with higher funding costs, planning uncertainty, increased demands from planning authorities and increased competition for sites.
To mitigate some of these risks the group continues to invest in long-term land, maintained robust risk management processes and targets key personnel.
Mr Watt said the group would continue to acquire land for private housing and increase the volume of contracts with partner clients and sub-contractors while retaining a competitive edge for tendering.
It would also increase its property development land bank to create a more steady flow of development opportunities across all commercial sectors.
The employee count at the group, founded by John Muir in 2004, slipped back during the year from 286 to 270.
Muir Group has recently invested a six-figure sum at Deer Park in West Lothian, taking its spending at the golf course to more than £2 million since 2004.
Deer Park was bought by group chairman John Muir in 1986.
