The pre-exceptional and amortisation profit was down a third on the previous year but was described as a resilient performance by M Group Services chief executive Jim Arnold.

M Group Services business performance was also supported by nearly £24m in covid job retention grants and  £29m in VAT payments deferredt o support cash.

Despite Covid disruption revenue only slipped 3% to £1.26bn as its infrastructure business managed to trade with limited disruption.

As a result, the group recorded revenue growth within water and telecoms. Transport recorded revenue slightly down with good rail growth offset by a large reduction in aviation work.

The pandemic had the biggest impact on the energy division as its work contained most consumer-facing activity, like domestic supply pipe replacement, smart meter installation and meter reading.

The latest figures do not include the acquisition of Skanska UK’s £320m turnover infrastructure services operation last April, now rebranded Milestone Infrastructure.

Average monthly staff headcount fell by over 400 to 8,560 after a round of redundancies mainly in aviation-related business costing £1.3m and £1m of additional restructuring costs.

After amortisation of goodwill (£49m) from consolidated businesses and £49m in net interest costs on borrowings, Minerva Equity posted a pre-tax loss of £61m.