The slowdown in building and property activity and more challenging market conditions saw profit margins at BAM’s combined UK building, civil engineering and property activities squeezed to 1.8% in the first half of this year, down from 2.8% previously.

Profit fell 39% to £14.4m on revenue down 3% to £807m.

In half-year results, the Dutch group, said in the UK, BAM Nuttall had a slow start to the year but a recovery was foreseen for the remainder of 2019.

BAM Construction was described as making a solid contribution to the year.

Despite the fallback, BAM’s UK operations made the highest regional profit contribution, even surpassing the firm’s home Dutch market.

Overall Royal BAM Group, booked a €38m loss in the first half, down from €58m pre-tax profit previously on revenue up 7% to €3.45bn.

Rob van Wingerden, CEO of Royal BAM Group: ‘We regret that our results for the first half of 2019 were negatively impacted by extra costs on projects in Germany and at International.”

“As part of our ongoing portfolio review, we have decided to exit our activities in offshore wind foundations.

“In addition, in line with our continuous effort to lower the company risk profile, we transferred a part of our UK pension obligations to a third party on a cash neutral basis.”

He said that planned actions ahead would enable BAM to meet its strategic target of a pre-tax adjusted margin of 2-4% in 2020.