"Cash is king," goes the phrase and never more so than at Morgan Sindall, the contractor which this year has recorded the unprecedented feat -for a listed builder, anyway - of upgrading its predicted annual profit four times. This is an industry, remember, where, the opposite usually happens. "We're going to have a record year by a country mile," concedes its chief executive, John Morgan, the man who helped to set up the company, originally as a fit-out firm, in 1977 with Jack Lovell. Morgan, who turns 66 on New Year's Eve, does not go in for big statements - it's not his style - so what he is saying is quite some admission. The firm's previous best performance was the near ￡89m pre-tax profit it posted in 2019, but this year analysts are expecting the figure to be around the ￡127m mark. It last slipped into the red in 2015 - the result of two problem contracts it inherited when it bought Amec's construction and regeneration business in 2007 - and has not racked up an exceptional item since, of which Morgan is equally proud.
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