Reading: CH&Co wins £58m of new and retained business in half-year

Reading-based CH&Co Group has declared a highly successful first half of 2017 with over £58 million in new sales and retained business achieved.

The new sales across the UK, which represent £26.7m in full contract term value, are with over 20 new clients including Farnborough Business Park, Coleg Gwent, Arqiva, Pall Europe, St Giles Hospice, Healthcare at Home and Neilsen.

The retained business, worth £31.5m in full contract value, is with a number of long-term clients including The Law Society, Sopra Steria, and East Wintergarden in Canary Wharf.

The announcement coincides with the latest results for the Group, lodged at Companies House this week, showing annual turnover reaching £191m in the year ending December 2016 and an EBITDA of £8.2m or 4.3%. Operating cash flows were strong, driving an overall net increase in cash of £2.7m across the Group.

Bill Toner, chief executive of CH&Co Group, explained: “Our businesses, including The Brookwood Partnership which joined with CH&Co Group in July 2016, have continued to perform well with strong retention and a number of significant new contract wins.

“Our new contracts success demonstrates that the company is delivering what clients are looking for and the retention results show that our focus on clients is very much on the long term, providing the innovation and services they want and good value for money.”

Since June 2015, when HCM (Host Catermasters) merged with CH&Co to create CH&Co Group, The Brookwood Partnership (in July 2016) and Harbour & Jones (in June 2017) have also joined the group.  The projected annual turnover of the new combined company is £265m.

Toner added: “The enlarged family has provided opportunities for all of the original companies involved to share best practice and update systems and IT to make sure we have state of the art technology, leading learning and development programmes, and the latest thinking in marketing; all geared up to providing the best service to our customers. The new expanded team features great talent, experience and verve, and we have attracted some strong industry players to join us.  We are in a very good place to drive the business forward to continued success.”