With the JLE struggling to make its deadline, it has called in . . . - Bechtel - Men in Black

They are the people clients call when things go wrong. They fix mega projects and rebuild countries. They hobnob with world leaders and have former US Secretaries of State heading up the board. They are movers and shakers. They are now going to see that the Jubilee Line successfully moves people to the Millennium Dome. And they will do it by shaking up British contractors (or so the Brits fear).

They are Bechtel - construction's own Men In Black. The San Francisco-based company may be as American as Uncle Sam, but its CV of major British schemes is as impressive as any indigenous firm. The list is long and growing surreptitiously all the time - Docklands Light Railway, Channel Tunnel, Limehouse Link, CTRL, Cardiff Barrage. And, as of last week, the troubled Jubilee Line Extension.

Yet you've probably read little about them. That's the way they like it. They quietly appear when projects go wrong, sort things out then sink back into the shadows again.

So who are the Men in Black? Well, Bechtel is a massive company - $11.3 billion (£7.06 billion) turnover last year, dwarfing the UK's nearest equivalent, Amec, which turned over £2.7 billion in 1997. It has over 30,000 people on the payroll worldwide.

Yet, surprisingly, this giant is privately owned. The Bechtel family, who founded the company 100 years ago, still own a big slice of the shares. And senior employees are the majority stakeholders.

The statistics of the company's achievements are impressive: 19,000 projects in 140 countries, 500 nuclear and coal-fired power stations, 75 airports, 80,000 km of pipeline systems, 22 new towns, and 40 per cent of the world natural gas liquefaction capacity - Small wonder it is regarded by many as the world's number one contractor.

politicians

The company can boast a long line of prominent US politicians who have gone on to hold senior positions at the company. Prime among these is former Bechtel president George Shultz, former Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan.

Hardly surprising, with contacts like these, that Bechtel quietly took a major slice of the clean-up work after the Gulf War let by the US military. Contracts to dismantle intercontinental ballistic missile silos have added to its mystique.

While the press clippings file on Bechtel is not exactly bulging, their management style is well known - and rarely forgotten by those who have been on the receiving end.

After its troubleshooting exploits over here, Bechtel is viewed with some trepidation in the UK. There is almost universal agreement that Bechtel managers are harsh, bordering on brutal, but with an equal level of agreement that they also get results.

One contractor, who asked to remain anonymous, told CJ: "They're more than brash - they're arrogant. It's also that they think they're the best and don't mind telling you at every opportunity. But they're good and couldn't possibly be number one if they weren't." A Bechtel spokesman told CJ from San Francisco: "We are out to be superior. Period."

One of the reasons for their popularity with clients is they are akin to operators themselves. They have a major involvement in private finance projects that dwarfs anything claimed by British firms. "Our finance and development capability is a key point that differentiates us. We have an owner's perspective. We understand first-hand what is expected in terms of quality, speed and cost," says the spokesman.

Its reputation has already led to it being involved on the first water PFI job in Scotland, along with Morrison and United Utilities. It is also in a major JV with Shell - called Intergen - to build gas-`fired power stations in the UK.

An example of Bechtel's "owner's perspective" was provided in the Philippines last year. Bechtel's consortium won a £1 billion commission to run the water system for the eastern zone of Manilla - by promising to cut local water bills by three quarters. The authorities were flabbergasted. As a client, it was exactly what they would want. Yet rival groups had been offering only a 25 per cent cut.

"We aggressively go for goals," says the spokesman. Apart from this, Bechtel are just very driven. Or perhaps incentivised is a better term: "Over half the company is owned by the executives, which is a major motivator."

Add to this the fact that they are not distracted by the stock market, and you have the recipe for a company totally focused on the job. "We are not concerned with the next quarterly statement. We don't have a share price to fret about. We focus on the customer, not on Wall Street or the City."

grudgingly

A major British contractor, who again did not wish to be named, grudgingly confirms: "They're big, they've got a lot of resources, and a lot of reputation. The company's distinct advantage is that it is has a good approach to complex projects. They've got a lot of good people. They're paid to do a job and they simply get on and do it."

Clients clearly seem to hold them in higher regard than UK firms. Whilst no one seems to be able to put their finger on exactly what the advantage might be, the indications are that it is cultural.

"You can't dismiss the US 'can do' attitude," says one UK contractor with an international reputation. "They have a positive approach to problems, in that they really don't see them as problems. It is a cultural thing which prevails throughout the States, it's not just construction, problems are there to be overcome and not wallowed in."

According to contractors, the mere knowledge that the Men in Black are on their way to site makes contractors stand to attention, like raw army recruits spotting the drill sergeant striding across the parade ground. Bechtel managers play to these perceptions to great effect.

It sent shivers down the spines of TML employees during the dark days of the Channel Tunnel. And no doubt their appointment to "advise" on the JLE will have the same effect.

On a lighter note, another source within one of the Top Ten contractors tells CJ: "The biggest mystery for us is the location of the factory where they churn all these clones out of. All the Bechtel people are 6'6", dress the same, and speak the same. They are all clearly well indoctrinated."

successes

One of Bechtel's most clear cut successes in the UK has been jointly managing North West Water's £2.5 billion investment programme with the client. Its approach has saved large amounts of money, and put Bechtel in pole position to take over the whole programme from NWW.

Elsewhere, though, Bechtel's UK adventures have not automatically had such a happy ending. Its involvement in the Limehouse Link did not prevent the London Docklands Development Corporation from being panned over the cost of the project by Government auditors. And on the Channel Tunnel, it did not succeed in stopping huge cost overruns or bringing harmony to TML and Eurotunnel.

Not that peace and harmony appear to be high on Bechtel's agenda. Or winning friends and influencing people.

Earlier this year, it came in for heavy criticism from UK partners over its sharp negotiating tactics on the CTRL, which is said to have enabled the company to secure a sky-high fee for its services. The UK consultants involved claim privately that Bechtel secured these by threatening to walk away from the project just before the deal was about to be signed.

When Bechtel ultimately sidelined them in the rescue plan (CJ 25 February), they were livid at what they saw as an attempt by the US giant to ride on the back of their design work. They felt they were undermined when the company opened separate talks with the Government during the crisis earlier this year when London and Continental Railways went cap in hand to the Government in an attempt to plug a yawning gap in its finances, which were based on over-optimistic revenue forecasts.

There are echoes of this with the JLE, as London Underground says there is a blank cheque on the table, just so long as the line is open in time for the Millennium Exhibition at the Greenwich Dome. No fixed fee has been agreed and a LUL spokesman says: "It will cost whatever it costs." Bechtel's arrival on the JLE has aroused the usual intrigue that the British construction industry has come to expect from its appointments.

The client certainly did its best to keep it a low-key affair. The "announcement" came in the middle of seemingly innocuous press release about a video showing a speeded up journey from the front of a train travelling from Green Park to Stratford. A single paragraph about the appointment of Bechtel was slipped into the middle of the text.

It was the kind of thing the media would give a quick scan before consigning to the waste-paper bin. Well, perhaps this was not the kind of thing a client would want to draw a lot of attention to, as a major contractor observes: "It is interesting that, with all the experience that London Underground has, that it has to call in Bechtel."

In the release, LU's commercial director David Bailey asserts that the project is progressing well for opening in advance of the millennium, stating that it has invited Bechtel to give an "honest independent appraisal of our plans and performance," noting that its findings "should provide added assurance that our plans are realistic and achievable."

Such assurances are needed - even at this advanced stage when the project should be cruising to a satisfactory conclusion. Yet its completion date has slipped from March 1998, to September 1998, and finally "spring" 1999. Inside sources told CJ as long ago as August last year that the real issue is whether the JLE could be completed before the millennium.

Hugh Doherty says he is "reasonably confident" the line will meet this latest revised deadline. Even so, insiders say that the "spring" completion date is being taken to mean anything up to June 1999. Against this background of uncertainty Hugh Doherty has been ordered to submit fortnightly progress reports to the transport minister Glenda Jackson and JLE has appointed the most famous troubleshooters in the world, construction's Men in Black.