WET News

LEADERS 2018 35 THE LEADERS 2018 VOLKERSTEVIN The Lancashire Hub Preston City Park Bluebell Way PR2 5PE Preston Tel: 01772 708 620 www.volkerstevin.co.uk Engineering solutions provider VolkerStevin is part of VolkerWessels UK, an £850 million turnover group that brings together five business units to collaborate across multidisciplinary projects. It provides complex engineering solutions across a wide range of sectors including maritime, flood risk management, water, energy, land remediation and regeneration and general civil engineering. It has enjoyed positive results in the last two years, with the last available year of accounts showing a 40 per cent increase in turnover and pre-tax profits of £2.2 million. With around 400 staff, the company is led by Rob Coupe (managing director), Richard Towse (commercial director) and Eddie Tattersall (business development director). In July 2014, United Utilities appointed C2V+, a VolkerStevin and CH2M joint venture, as one of four construction delivery partners (CDP) for AMP6. The AMP6 contract is a design-and-construct UU work boosts Volker- Stevin framework for the next capital investment period, from 2015 to 2020, and covers the full spectrum of works for both water and wastewater. The contract, which could be further extended to 2026, covers multidisciplinary activities including design, project management, construction, testing, commissioning and maintenance of water and wastewater treatment works, pipelines, pumping stations, reservoirs and mechanical and electrical installations. Some of the company's recent water projects include Allonby water treatment works, Anchorsholme Park phase one, the Preston Outfall and the Mersey Valley Sludge Pipeline. Volkerstevin has an in-house MEICA team to co-ordinate the design, specification and procurement of all process, mechanical and electrical equipment and provide support to the experienced site construction teams during installation. For example, it has worked with various water companies designing, constructing and delivering new and refurbished MEICA projects on both potable water and sewage works. VEOLIA UK 8th Floor 210 Pentonville Road London, N1 9JY Tel: 020 7812 5000 www.veolia.co.uk Veolia plots circular economy ture Environmental solutions provider Veolia provides a comprehensive range of waste, water and energy management services designed to build the circular economy and preserve scarce raw materials. A key player in the UK water market, the company has established its reputation based on activities including offering technological solutions for the treatment of potable, process and utility water, and wastewater; and the operations and maintenance of water and wastewater treatment plants. The firm's recent UK financial performance in the water arena is difficult to compare to previous years because of the major change of direction of the business that took place in 2015, when Veolia Water moved away from design-and-build work in order to concentrate on optimising assets and creating Totex outcomes for clients. Previously, Veolia had been part of design and build joint venture CVA, along with Costain and Atkins, and had been part of the eight2O alliance for Thames Water. Despite the reduced turnover resulting from the move, profitability has improved, demonstrating the wisdom of the strategy. An example of Veolia's optimisation work has been its energy efficiency and renewable energy work with Scottish Water; it has helped the utility achieve self-sufficiency at multiple individual plants and boosted overall energy resilience. Meanwhile, Veolia's Water Technologies arm is able to offer a number of technologies that maximise the value from sewage sludge, such as its Exelys packaged sludge treatment unit, which combines thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic digestion. Veolia's expertise in energy-from-waste means it is well placed to benefit from the opening up of the market for bioresources from sewage in 2020, and in April this year it launched BioTrading, a cross-industry trading platform for bioresources. THE NUMBERS 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 % change Sales £m 101.2 117.4 115.5 106.6 88.2 -17 Gross profit £m 11.2 20.8 23.4 14.1 18.6 32 Operating profit £m -10.7 -26.1 -6.5 -6.5 3.3 n/a Pre-tax profit £m 569.3 16.3 0.1 1.3 6.1 370 Staff 859 718 640 n/a n/a n/a Net assets £m 824.5 269.9 272.0 267.2 276.1 3 THE RATIOS 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 % change Return on capital % 69.0 6.1 0.0 0.5 2.2 355 Gross margin % 11.0 17.7 20.2 13.2 21.1 60 Operating margin % -10.6 -22.2 -5.6 -6.1 3.7 n/a Net margin % 562.6 13.9 0.1 1.2 7.0 468 Sales/employee £k 117.8 163.5 180.4 n/a n/a n/a THE NUMBERS 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 % change Sales £m 73.7 68.1 68.2 109.4 153.3 40 Gross profit £m 8.0 2.8 4.3 6.6 8.7 33 Operating profit £m 3.7 0.6 0.4 0.9 2.5 184 Pre-tax profit £m 3.3 0.2 0.1 0.5 2.2 312 Staff 199 205 223 313 392 25 Net assets £m 13.4 14.0 15.1 16.0 17.1 7 THE RATIOS 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 % change Return on capital % 25.0 1.5 0.6 3.4 13.1 287 Gross margin % 10.8 4.1 6.3 6.0 5.7 -5 Operating margin % 5.0 0.8 0.7 0.8 1.6 103 Net margin % 4.5 0.3 0.1 0.5 1.5 194 Sales/employee £k 370.4 332.1 305.9 349.6 391.0 12

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