A touch of Gallic flair

To date, Bouygues has led something of a charmed life when it comes to PFI work in the UK as it hasn't yet lost a single project that it made a "serious" bid for.

Bouygues' first PFI involvement was Barnet Hospital, a £50m project that is now under construction. Bouygues' business development director Ian Gunter says: "The consortium that made the winning bid didn't have a contractor on board. Initially, Higgs & Hill was selected to do the construction work but it pulled out.

"We then got a call from Cyril Sweett asking if we wanted to pitch. At the final hurdle I think it was between Kier and us.

"The invitation from Sweett was our UK launch pad. Having decided to move into the UK construction market, PFI was the logical place for Bouygues to look, as PFI uses all the strengths of our parent group: from design and financial engineering through to the actual build phase itself."

Bouygues' next two PFI opportunities both came from client European Land, which invited it to pre-qualify for two projects, both at King's College London. One was the Franklin Wilkins Building, Waterloo, which carried a £60m build value, with Hunt's House at Guy's Hospital bringing a further £40m of work.



Bouygues bagged the pair, outlasting a challenge from Sir Robert McAlpine after a shortlist of four had been whittled down to the final two. European Land, winner of the PFI contract for both hospital projects, subsequently gave Bouygues the green light as facilities maintenance provider as well as builder.

"Those awards sure got us noticed," says Gunter. "It meant we were up and running. We had provided ourselves with the necessary references to enter serious talks with other potential clients."

Bouygues' fourth PFI was West Middlesex Hospital, and for the first time it headed up its own consortium. The project involves a £54m construction phase and a 35-year FM deal. "We started at the beginning on this one and got all the parties in line ourselves," says Gunter. "We're now on site and it's going well."

And that's it as regards PFI deals beyond financial close. But there could be more to come as Bouygues is currently on a shortlist of two for the £145m Havering Hospital PFI, with the challenge here coming from Bovis Lend Lease. And it is also preferred bidder for a Home Office PFI that offers a £150m construction value.

"In the UK we're doing pretty well at developing organically, picking up projects and then recruiting to meet their needs," says Gunter.

Gunter won't be drawn far on Bouygues' bid to buy Laing Construction - but reading between the lines it would seem that Bouygues was never a serious contender and was certainly not on a shortlist of three with the two other finalists O'Rourke and Multiplex.

"A lot of major European groups like us got the portfolio offering details of Laing's construction business. So we had a little look," says Gunter. "But I'm not aware that we went further than that."

Gunter's distancing of Bouygues from a shortlist of three doesn't square with Laing's claims that the French group, along with Multiplex, has been "kept sweet" for months so that either would be ready to step into the breach if O'Rourke should fail to sign on the line.

In addition to PFI work, Bouygues has also been growing organically in the UK by bidding for work in the private sector, managing to achieve a strike rate of about one in three.

An award that highlights Bouygues' position in the UK private sector is its design-and-build contract award in London at 552 Kings Road, Chelsea. Valued at more than £80m, the project involves creating 274 apartments and penthouses, 12 town houses, two mansions, a 300-space underground car park and a health/leisure club. Part of the work calls for working with retained fa‡ades, and there is also a new build element.



Showing the width of its UK aspirations, Bouygues has recently completed a £9m scheme to build a new headquarters and distribution centre for Computer 2000. Built to an eight-month construction programme, the project called for office development on three levels along with 32 truck-loading docks leading in and out of a 36,000m2 warehouse.

The distribution centre project highlights the value of being in a large group, as Bouygues had already worked for the American computer logistics group on its home territory back in France. "That went well, and it led to Computer 2000 wanting us to do work for it in the UK," says Gunter. "In a nutshell, the UK project was won by Bouygues Europe as a result of relationships cemented in France."

Gunter's pivotal role started back in 1995 when he joined the group, his initial task being to research the UK market and see what opportunities there might be. It was not the easiest of tasks as the UK construction industry was bearing the brunt of turbulent times.

Gunter spent his first 12 months based in France, at Rouen, and only after that did he return to London with a small team - having already won a design and build hotel in London's Northumberland Avenue.

That team has grown rapidly and today Bouygues' UK head count runs to more than 200. It has management teams involved in such areas as technical, design and estimating. An FM team gives a further boost to numbers.

Gunter adds: "On site, we've also got our own people involved in both structural and direct labour works rather than working to a policy of subcontracting everything. Depending on the phase, around 20% to 25% of the people on site would be Bouygues' direct labour. Naturally, when it comes to specialist work, such as M&E, all that kind of work is subcontracted.

"A construction group that focussed only on the domestic market would find it hard to maintain its own workforce as its business would be at the mercy of the peaks and troughs in that market. But an international player like us has the benefit of inter-company mobility. Some of the Bouygues staff in London were previously employed on schemes in Hong Kong, Singapore or in east Europe. While many of us speak French, essentially we're a league of nations."