Chairman Richard Fildes said he took heart that the scale of the losses at £470,000, were much improved from the same period in 2009 when the group made a heavy loss of £4.4m.
Across the Cheshire-based group sales slid 12% to £41.8m due to a slowdown in projects coming through, which saw contracting turnover down nearly half.
He said: “The construction division has again performed creditably, turning in a near break even result on reduced levels of turnover.
“The forward order book, remains healthy, although the start dates for a number of key contracts have been delayed, making a profitable outcome for the division in the second half of the year increasingly challenging.”
Concrete pumping ran up losses of £50o,000 during the six months to November although this has been restructured to reflect falling orders.
He added: “The concrete pumping division, though still loss making, has shown signs of improvement, with better margins and tighter cost control.
“The results for the full year should show the benefit of the re-organisation which took place last summer but will inevitably be influenced by the level of public sector spending.”
The group’s property investment and development, located largely in North West England, experienced only a slow improvement in the market for commercial property.
Pochin added it had made steady progress with disposals of stock in the former homes division.