Pre-tax profits for the year to 30 June 2017 fell nearly 60% from £135m to £59m, on revenue up 6% to £2,820m (2016: £2,670m).

Profit was hit by one-off charges of £98.3m, which includes £87.9m in respect of the two infrastructure joint ventures in Scotland: the £790m Queensferry Crossing and the Balmedie-Tipperty section on the £550m AWPR.

Both projects were contracted on fixed-price terms – Queensferry Crossing in 2011 and AWPR in 2014.

Galliford Try’s construction division made an operating loss of £88.8m for the year on revenue of £1,526.9m. Even excluding the one-off costs associated with writing off major contract losses, the division still failed to break even, making a pre-exceptional operating loss of £900,000.

On a positive note, Galliford Try’s house-building division Linden Homes made an operating profit of £170.3m (2016: £147.2m) on revenue up 11% to £937.4m (2016: £840.8m).

Chief executive Peter Truscott the firm will now focus on lower risk public, utility and two-stage tender work.

He said: “We have put into place rigorous processes to ensure a more disciplined approach towards project selection. Today, we are focusing on lower-risk public and regulated sectors and two-stage negotiated work, rather than large infrastructure projects on fixed-price, all-risk contracts which these legacy projects were.”

He added: “The construction market remains largely positive, as the UK continues to require substantial investment in its social and economic infrastructure. As a result, the order book in our Construction business remains strong and we have already secured a significant proportion of work for the financial year, and much of the following year 2019. Our focus is on contract quality and risk management, and we will continue to be rigorous in our project selection, with revenue expected to remain broadly stable year-on-year as a result. Our newer work has been operating under these parameters and performance to date has been encouraging and is supportive of our target margins. As our legacy positions close out we expect margins to improve as we work towards our 2021 target of at least 2.0%.”