Aiming for Stock Exchange listing

Weeks Group, the consulting engineer and construction materials tester, wants to build its market capitalisation to £100 million in order to win a place on the Stock Exchange.

Phillip Hill, commercial director, said this week: "We need to expand to a £50 million-a-year turnover, an annual pre-tax profit of £7 million and a P:E ratio [a company's share price divided by its earnings per share] of 20. Also, we have to build Weeks to a market capitalisation of £100 million."

Weeks floated on the Alternative Investment Market in September 1996. The group's deadline for achieving a full stock market listing is five years from now.

Latest annual results (12 months to 31 March 1999) show a pre-tax profit of £670,000 (£810,000) from a turnover of £16 million (£14 million). Richard Pugh, chief executive, pointed out that Weeks was listed in the top five fastest growing companies in the sector last year.

Half the group's total turnover comes from consultancy work. This splits between building, environmental and geotechnical. "Novel procurement accounts for 35-50 per cent of building turnover," said Hill, "with the figure moving fast towards 65 per cent.

"Our environmental and geotechnical workload is going down the same road. We have strategic alliances/long-term partnering arrangements which account for 25 per cent of the total turnover in these businesses."