Water and Effluent Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1105798
THE LEADERS 2019 MORGAN SINDALL Corporation Street Rugby CV21 2DW Tel: 01788 534500 www.morgansindall.com Construction and infrastructure company Morgan Sindall celebrated record profits for the full year to 31 December 2018, with adjusted profit before tax up 23 per cent to £81.6 million against revenue of £2,972 million, which was itself a 6 per cent increase on the previous year. Year-end net cash of £207 million and an average cash balance of £99 million bode well for the financial strength of the firm. Morgan Sindall can count Yorkshire Water and Welsh Water among its water company clients and offers its customers in the sector a range of services covering civil engineering, utility services, tunnelling, and mechanical and electrical design and installation. The company says its water division carried out work worth £100 million in 2018. A major contributor to that figure was its work on the west section of the Thames Tideway Tunnel with BAM Nuttall and Balfour Beatty, a project valued at around £500 Record profits for Morgan Sindall million in total to the three-way joint venture over seven years. Morgan Sindall was also part of the group that delivered the £635 million Lee Tunnel project for Thames Water in 2016. Chief executive John Morgan said 2018 was a "bumper" year for the firm, and described the company's strategy as being "very selective" in its bidding for construction work. Simon Smith, managing director for Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, said: "Morgan Sindall Infrastructure begins 2019 in a robust position, having grown our order book in the previous year. We are an industry leader specialising in the design and delivery of technically demanding infrastructure, offering a diverse civil engineering capability to our customers across our chosen sectors of highways, rail, aviation, nuclear, energy and water. "This expertise, and our focus on delighting our customers, ensures we are best-placed to meet the increasingly complex demands of today's projects." THE NUMBERS 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 % change Sales £m 547.4 579.3 642.6 675.1 708.0 5 Gross profit £m 209.8 223.3 251.8 257.4 257.8 0 Operating profit £m 12.4 28.0 36.0 35.4 13.3 -62 Pre-tax profit £m 22.6 36.7 40.7 47.0 29.5 -37 Staff 5,651 6,086 6,401 6,612 6,619 0 Net assets £m 327.0 309.3 307.9 313.3 337.3 8 THE RATIOS 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 % change Return on capital % 6.9 11.9 13.2 15.0 8.7 -42 Gross margin % 38.3 38.5 39.2 38.1 36.4 -5 Operating margin % 2.3 4.8 5.6 5.3 1.9 -64 Net margin % 4.1 6.3 6.3 7.0 4.2 -40 Sales/employee £k 96.9 95.2 100.4 102.1 107.0 5 MOTT MACDONALD 10 Fleet Place Farringdon London EC4M 7RB Tel: 020 7651 0300 www.mottmac.com Mott MacDonald aims to build on UK water success Mott MacDonald saw revenues rise in 2017, although operating and pre-tax profits saw a dip from the previous 12 months. The global engineering, management and development consultancy is aiming for growth in AMP7, having secured what it described as "good volumes from the UK water companies" in the current cycle. A significant part of that work is delivered by Mott MacDonald Bentley (MMB), which sees Mott MacDonald responsible for design expertise and JN Bentley providing feasibility, design and construction services. Established in 1999, the joint venture has proved highly successful: Mott MacDonald acquired Bentley in 2014 and MMB currently has frameworks with Yorkshire Water, Severn Trent, Anglian Water, Northumbrian Water Group, United Utilities and Welsh Water. For the 2020-25 period, MMB has been named on Severn Trent's capital delivery design-and-build framework, while Bentley also claimed a place on one of the capital delivery build-only frameworks. Across its wider portfolio, Mott MacDonald has set itself a target to become 'digital by default' in its project design, delivery, communication and documentation work. In addition, it strengthened its offering in the smart infrastructure sphere this year with the announcement of a strategic partnership with Microso£ to deliver asset performance modelling, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. The agreement sees Mott MacDonald moving Moata, its cloud-based analytics and digital twin platform, to Microso£'s Azure. Moata is currently being used by 12 local authorities across Australia and New Zealand to help manage their water and wastewater assets. Auckland City Council, for example, has been able to improve the accuracy of its water quality predictions along the coastline with the use of a city-scale digital twin that represents the real-time interaction between atmospheric conditions, the urban stormwater and wastewater networks, and the marine environment. THE NUMBERS 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 % change Sales £m 2,094.9 2,219.8 2,384.7 2,561.6 2,792.7 9 Gross profit £m 156.6 181.0 166.3 243.7 274.4 13 Operating profit £m 16.2 26.5 -10.3 47.4 67.4 42 Pre-tax profit £m 13.9 22.8 -14.8 43.9 64.9 48 Staff 5,752 5,750 5,828 5,982 n/a n/a Net assets £m 257.5 268.5 249.7 277.2 316.6 14 THE RATIOS 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 % change Return on capital % 5.4 8.5 -5.9 15.8 20.5 29 Gross margin % 7.5 8.2 7.0 9.5 9.8 3 Operating margin % 0.8 1.2 -0.4 1.9 2.4 30 Net margin % 1.4 -2.4 2.3 2.2 1.9 -16 Sales/employee £k 247.1 246.7 257.8 227.3 237.0 4 22 LEADERS 2019