Covid-19 affected Sheffield-headquartered Fulcrum’s financial performance heavily in the second part of the year.

Despite an initial strong bounce back from the impact of the pandemic in the first half, the second half was adversely affected, especially as the national lockdowns delayed the award, mobilisation and completion of some contracts.

Terry Dugdale, chief executive officer, said: “Just like many businesses, Fulcrum was affected by the considerable challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic in the year, and this is reflected in our financial performance.

“However, we were agile, resilient and responded quickly and effectively to Covid-19, remaining operational and making progress in the execution of our strategy, with full year performance being in line with the expectations stated in our interim results. 

“We still have much more to do, but we have emerged from FY21 stronger.”

Dugdale took over as chief executive at the start of this year and renewed the firm’s focus on margin and cost discipline.

He said Fulcrum was now better equipped to take advantage of the significant opportunity to become the net-zero utility connector of choice.

“We improved our ability to win larger opportunities and won a variety of new and significant contracts in the year, including a £1.6m new housing contract, our first project with over 1,500 connections, a £4.2m contract to provide 13.5km of new high voltage electrical infrastructure for a major redevelopment project, a £1.5m contract to install 3.8km of gas infrastructure for a large automotive manufacturing operation and contracts with a major Charge Point Operator to design and install electric vehicle charging infrastructure for two national UK retailers.

“The efforts that went into securing new contracts in the year, many of which were previously unobtainable to the group, not only contributed to a healthy order book but also laid the foundations for a succession of some of the group’s largest-ever contract wins which were secured post year-end.”

The £20m, five-year agreement, will see Fulcrum become the Meter Operator (MOP) and Meter Asset Manager (MAM) for Birmingham-based energy supplier E.