M&A

Mace’s FY results for 2019 were published this morning, revealing a £570m drop in revenue. The company had flagged in 2018 that its revenue for that year had been exceptionally high due its work on a large data centre project. Positively, the decline in revenue did not hit profit, with…

Our exclusive analysis reveals a continuing trend of lower rewards across the industry’s top 20 highest earners at listed firms, with the UK’s largest contractors falling broadly in line with wider patterns of executive pay restraint

The top 20 highest-earning executives at UK contractors were handed pay packages worth a total…

Morgan Sindall CEO John Morgan thinks COVID-19 has been a “wake-up call” for the industry, with restrictions forcing a reassessment of how businesses operate and leading to improvements. Morgan spoke to Construction News following yesterday’s trading update that revealed the company would beat an earlier full-year pre-tax profit forecast of…

Wates chief executive David Allen tells Ian Weinfass why the sector has thrived despite the crisis it faced in 2020, how this will help solve the skills shortage, and how he plans to grow his firm through its residential work

There were times in 2020 when things did not appear too…

Amey’s huge 2019 loss grabbed the headlines yesterday, but its accounts for the year contained some other fascinating insights, writes David Price.

The contractor’s result for the year was a tale of two companies. On the one side was its continuing operations, which turned a healthy pre-tax profit of £53.5m. On…

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) will end on 31 October, dispelling widespread rumours that the government would announce an extension following tightened national lockdown measures. Sunak explained that he saw no point in providing further funding to maintain jobs that, without the artificial…

Kier’s leadership took the unusual step of not speaking to the media following the release of its full-year results, which showed a £225m pre-tax loss for the contractor. Instead Construction News had to rely on city analysts to grill the business’s leaders – Zak Garner-Purkis picks out four things we…

Galliford Try posted a £60m loss this morning, which it blamed on the coronavirus crisis. After the disposal of its housebuilding arms, net cash had ballooned to £197.2m. Ian Weinfass spoke to chief executive Bill Hocking and finance director Andrew Duxbury and has picked out some of the headlines from its…

Costain chief executive Alex Vaughan has told Construction News exactly how he plans to avoid the type of costly disputes that caused the business to record a £90.4m loss in its half-year results. Having made changes in personnel, the types of contract Costain bids on and the culture of risk…

This page was published in 2020. For a more up-to-date analysis of the UK’s largest construction contractors, check out the CN100 list for 2021.  It wasn’t the £40m revenue growth, nor the profit that was most notable about M&E specialist Briggs & Forrester’s progress in 2019. It was that it…