Highest profits and revenue in 114-year history

20 April 2016
  • 15 per cent increase takes total revenue to £331m
  • Significant acquisitions boost presence in North America and South Africa
  • New sales orders grow by 27% from the previous year

BSI, the business standards company, has announced its results for the year ended 31 December 2015.  Growth of 15% maintains BSI’s consecutive 16-year track record of annual increases in underlying revenue.

Key points:

  • Revenue increased 15% to £331.1m (2014: £287.1m)*
    • Organic revenue at constant exchange grew by 9%
    • 2015 acquisitions added 6% revenue growth
    • Underlying1 operating profit up 22% to £35.4m (2014: £29.1m)*
      • Underlying operating profit at constant exchange grew by 18%
      • 2015 acquisitions added 4% profit growth
      • Net asset value increased 39% to £78.4m (2014: £56.5m)
      • Growth accelerated by significant acquisitions in early 2015

Howard Kerr, Chief Executive, commented: “Over the past few years BSI has developed into a truly integrated global enterprise, able to serve our clients across the world, while broadening our service into different business streams and sectors. The introduction of the principle of Organizational Resilience at the start of this year is another example of our unique product and service offering, combining our business streams of Knowledge, Assurance and Compliance to work with our clients to ensure their businesses stand the test of time.”

BSI’s international expansion strategy saw the business achieve an additional £22m revenue from overseas acquisitions in 2015 and almost 60% of total revenue is now generated outside the UK. 2015 - BSI acquired Environmental and Occupational Risk Management Inc. (EORM) and Hill Country Environment (HCE), which increased its capability in professional services within Environmental Health & Safety and also extended its scale in North America. BSI also established an important base in Africa, with the purchase of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Systems Certification business in South Africa.  BSI’s targeted financial objective of reaching £500m of revenues by 2018 is expected to be achieved through organic growth to £400m and acquisitions of £100m.

BSI’s global reach now spans across 73 offices and headcount increased by 18% to over 3,500 employees. BSI has expanded its client base by 4% to reach 80,000 across 182 countries worldwide. BSI’s approach of making excellence a habit is now recognized and adopted by multinationals, SMEs and governments worldwide.

BSI’s role as the UK’s National Standards Body saw it continue to engage and influence, both at home and internationally, shaping and delivering UK expertise in best practice around the world. 2015 saw the completion of the revision of the world’s two most adopted business standards, ISO 9001 (Quality Management) and ISO 14001 (Environmental Management).  Focus to provide domain knowledge in innovation and emerging technologies continued with standards developed on topics such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), Internet of Things, smart cities, connected and autonomous vehicles, and advanced digital manufacturing techniques including robot ethics. 

In 2016, BSI will continue to help businesses improve under the theme of Organizational Resilience across its priority sectors of healthcare, food and built environment, to ensure its global clients are able to adapt to change and continually improve their business propositions. Organizational Resilience will support businesses in domains such as operational resilience, supply chain resilience, and information resilience.

April 2016 saw BSI strengthen its information resilience capability with the acquisition of Espion Ltd and Espion UK, experts at managing and securing corporate information, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with 80 people, and clients in the UK and across Europe. BSI will further extend its footprint in the Southern hemisphere with the opening of an office in New Zealand and now has offices in 30 countries around the world.

Kerr concluded: “I wrote last year that in 2014 we were able to accelerate the implementation of our strategy. This process has continued during 2015 and despite pockets of uncertainty in the global economy, we have once again delivered strong financial results this year. This is very pleasing for our business, stakeholders and employees as it demonstrates the success of our strategy and it provides us with a healthy base for continued growth in the future.” 

Click here to review the online edition of our 2015 Annual Report and financial statement.

 

- Ends –

 

 Notes to Editors:

1 The term ‘underlying’ is defined as ‘before exceptional items and excluding the effect of material disposals’.

* Exchange rate movements during 2015 had a negligible effect on revenue and underlying operating profit

 

For a full copy of the 2015 Annual Report, please contact us or download a copy of the report.