Shares of HS2 contractors Balfour Beatty, Kier, Costain surge on green light February 11, 2020 Shares in British construction giants rose today after Prime Minister Boris Johnson opted to press ahead with the controversial HS2 rail project. The PM had been under pressure from some in his party to scrap the project after its estimated cost rose to £106bn. But today he gave the infrastructure scheme the green light, telling [...]
Rolls-Royce, Vodafone and Interserve among firms kicked off government’s anti-late payment scheme April 29, 2019 The public sector’s war on late payment intensified today as 17 big hitters in British business were kicked off a voluntary scheme intended to crack down on the problem, including several blue-chip firms. Read more: Number of firms paid late by Cabinet Office nearly triples since 2016 Rolls-Royce, Vodafone and BHP Billiton were among the [...]
HS2 ‘ignored concerns’ about winning bidder for £1.3bn Old Oak Common contract April 21, 2019 HS2 ignored warnings about a contractor’s ability to build a key station before awarding it the £1.3bn tender, according to a High Court claim. HS2 acknowledged a joint venture between Balfour Beatty and Vinci was “severely under-resourced [and] a real risk to the safe and timely completion and handover” of the crucial Old Oak Common station [...]
Balfour Beatty wins preferred bidder status in decade-long £1.5bn Network Rail contract March 14, 2019 Construction firm Balfour Beatty is set to be tasked with overseeing a wide-ranging program of railway track renewals and crossings for Network Rail for the next decade, in a £1.5bn contract. The UK’s biggest constructor, which carries out key public infrastructure projects such as Hinkley Point and Crossrail, has been selected as “preferred bidder” for [...]
Balfour Beatty: UK’s largest construction firm returns margins to ‘industry standard’ March 13, 2019 Balfour Beatty’s turnaround plan has returned the once troubled construction firm to “industry standard” margins, according to chief executive Leo Quinn. The biggest constructor in the UK reported an increase in profits and an order book growing more than a tenth year-on-year in its 2018 results, prompting shares to rise 1.2 per cent in morning trading. [...]
HS2 hit with legal claim from American engineering giant Bechtel over Old Oak Common contract March 3, 2019 HS2 has been hit with a legal claim by American engineering giant Bechtel after it failed to secure a £1bn contract to build Old Oak Common station. Last year Bechtel signed a £170m contract to deliver phase 2b of the railway, which will stretch from Crewe to Manchester, and the West Midlands to Leeds. The [...]
HS2 station contracts worth £2.56bn awarded to Mace, Balfour Beatty and Vinci February 6, 2019 HS2 has tasked construction firms Mace, Balfour Beatty and Vinci with building the project’s London terminus and west London super-hub at Old Oak Common, in deals worth £2.56bn. Mace and joint venture partner construction firm Dragados will take on the work at Euston, worth £1.65bn, in an award which will come as a blow to [...]
Lloyds prepares for Brexit with Berlin banking licence January 18, 2019 Lloyds Banking Group has secured a banking license for its Berlin subsidiary as the Brexit deadline date approaches. The lender has previously run the office on a standard passporting licence, however all British banks with customers in the EU could lose the licence after March 29 therefore Lloyds is seeking further regulatory approval, Reuters reported. [...]
Business titans tell ministers ‘next six months are critical’ in post-Brexit vote conference call January 16, 2019 Some of the UK’s highest-flying executives reportedly lashed out at the government after its historic defeat on Theresa May’s Brexit deal in parliament yesterday. The bosses of Balfour Beatty, Amazon and Tesco confronted cabinet members who failed to rule out a no-deal Brexit following the government’s massive defeat in a heated conference call immediately after [...]
A year on from Carillion: 12 months that brought outsourcing to its knees January 15, 2019 On the anniversary of Carillion’s dramatic collapse, two more public sector outsourcing giants, Interserve and Kier Group, are up against the ropes. In the intervening 12 months, outsourcers have lurched from one crisis to another, with profit warnings, massive project failures and revelations of systemic late payment of suppliers. City A.M. charts a year which [...]