WET News

6 LEADERS 2018 THE LEADERS 2018 AECOM's consultancy focus pays off Sales/employee £K AECOM Design Build 710.6 Dawnus 504.4 Mace 443.7 Interserve Construction 441.5 Morgan Sindall 428.2 Volkerstevin 391.0 Costain 375.6 Galliford Try 368.4 Balfour Beatty 308.4 George Leslie 298.5 A ECOM's water business in the UK and Ireland has focused its efforts in AMP6 on delivering professional consultancy services to the water sector. This strategy has meant that it has been able to concentrate on high value work and to be selective with the projects it pursues, partnering with water companies and contractors on key projects and providing asset management services. The company has been able to deliver growth outside of the AMP process through its work on major, nationally sig- nificant water projects: it has worked on some of the UK's flagship projects such as the Thames Tideway Tunnel and the Deephams STW upgrade for Thames, the latter as part of the AMK joint venture with Murphy and Kier. An example of its strategic consul- tancy work has been its partnership with Yorkshire Water, where it has helped the utility implement an asset management system that takes account of natural capi- tal and social capital in its planning deci- sions – a so-called 'five capitals' approach. A joint venture between Morrison Util- ity Services and AECOM successfully completed its first large-diameter pipeline project on behalf of Scottish Water earlier this year. The Dalmacoulter Resilience scheme in North Lanarkshire involved the design, construction and installation of a new AECOM Wentworth Industrial Park, Tankersley, Barnsley S75 3DL. Tel: 01226 224466. www.aecom.com 1,000mm-diameter high performance polyethylene water main that brought network resilience and improved continu- ity of supply to around 200,000 Scottish Water customers. The disposal of AECOM's Irish design- and-build business to Murphy reflected the change in direction and emphasis for the firm, and is reflected in headcount and turnover figures. Nevertheless, AECOM Design & Build emerged with the highest sales-employee ratio of any com- pany in the Leaders database, at 710.6. Globally, AECOM's revenue increased by 5 per cent to $18.2 billion (£12.7 billion) in the 12 months to 30 September 2016. The global design and engineering giant saw pre-tax profit more than treble to $429 million over the same period. In under 10 years, the firm has quadru- pled its income and almost tripled its headcount to 87,000. Chairman and chief executive Michael S Burke said: "Our ability to integrate design, build, finance and operate ser- vices through the full lifecycle of a pro- ject, along with our experience across a range of global markets, means we can imagine the exceptional and deliver it more efficiently." AECOM said it concluded numerous "transformative" engineering and project management schemes for large public- sector clients across a variety of sectors in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the year to 30 September 2016. The company last summer launched a training portal to enable learners to acquire asset management certificates. The firm said the launch extended its presence in the asset management sector. AECOM last autumn warned that a number of regulatory and macro-eco- nomic factors would force water compa- nies to innovate to avoid a dip in margins. The firm predicted that water industry inflation would rise at a faster rate than CPIH over the next five years. Senior consultant Edward Day said: "Water companies will need to aggres- sively innovate and more efficiently deliver works in AMP7 since their costs are likely to rise at a faster rate than indexed revenues." THE NUMBERS 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 % change Sales £m 35.8 61.0 51.5 34.7 24.9 -28 Gross profit £m 10.6 10.8 4.0 15.1 -19.3 n/a Operating profit £m 0.6 0.5 0.6 -18.3 -1.3 n/a Pre-tax profit £m 0.9 0.5 0.7 -18.0 -1.5 n/a Staff 147 159 173 114 35 -69 Net assets £m 8.9 6.9 4.3 -18.6 -24.3 n/a THE RATIOS 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 % change Return on capital % 9.7 7.9 16.5 96.7 6.3 -93 Gross margin % 29.7 17.8 7.8 43.6 -77.5 n/a Operating margin % 1.7 0.9 1.2 -52.9 -5.1 n/a Net margin % 2.4 0.9 1.4 -51.9 -6.1 n/a Sales/employee £k 243.5 383.8 297.7 303.9 710.6 134 AECOM has worked on the Thames Tideway Tunnel

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