Water and Effluent Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/507429
leaders 2105 7 (metric: engagement survey) • Trusted – Strengthen the successful execution of projects and services through disciplined stage-gated bidding, contracting and risk review processes (metric: customer satisfaction) • Safe – Prioritise safety at all levels and for all employees, sub-contractors, customers and communities (metric: zero harm) Quinn says: "The group's recent trading makes it imperative to gain early momentum in our transformation plans. Whilst further challenges remain, there are clear opportunities to achieve improvements in cash generation and profitability in the near term. "Balfour Beatty has great strengths across its portfolio – not least in its Investments division, where recent transactions underline the ongoing ability of this business to create value. I continue to believe all our operations should achieve industry-standard performance against what appears to be a beneficial market environment." Quinn said that in the longer term, the aim is to shape a group with leadership in key markets, driving best- in-class performance from a platform of strong capability, leaner processes and robust execution. Balfour Beatty's past year would not be complete without mentioning the talks with Carillion over a potential £3.05bn merger. A er admitting to the talks last July, things started falling apart a er Carillion objected to Balfour's proposed sale of consultancy Parsons Brinkerhoff (PB), which has since been sold to Canadian group WSP Global for £820M. The PB sale came two weeks a er Balfour Beatty warned shareholders that it could breach its covenants if that acquisition was not approved. Moving forward, Quinn has been quick to outline the task ahead: "I think it's quite important to understand that Balfour Beatty is a very large company, it's £8.9bn, operates on four continents and it is a complex organisation. As a result of which this is going to be a complex transformation and it is like turning an oil tanker, it's going to be slow, but it is going to be deliberate. And I think in my first communication with employees is that we're going to have to make some bold decisions very early on and then we're going to sort of put the foundation in place to build this company to last." THE NUMBERS 2011 2012 2013 % cHaNgE Sales £M 9,494 8,656 8,745 1 Gross profit £M 1,136 989 863 -13 Operating profit £M 168 154 48 -69 Pre-tax profit £M 246 121 17 -86 Staff 50,195 50,174 49,785 -1 Net assets £M 1,259 1,310 1,033 -21 THE RaTIOS 2011 2012 2013 % cHaNgE Return on capital % 19.5 9.2 1.6 -82 Gross margin % 12 11.4 9.9 -14 Operating margin % 1.8 1.8 0.5 -69 Net margin % 2.6 1.4 0.2 -86 Sales/employee £K 189.1 172.5 175.7 2 Balfour's support services division reported a 1% increase in revenue to £1.3bn last year while profit from operations was down 9% to £50M