CJ50 Market data: Kier’s Christmas cracker

PDF of market data December 2006

Kier ended 2006 on a high by claiming the top spot in December’s CJ50 table for the first time in the year. It was a strong performer all year, spending nearly every month in the top 10 and claiming a top five spot in the annual housing, public and commercial tables. Its outstanding end-of-year result also pushed it up a place to third in the overall cumulative table for 2006.

More than £159m of Kier’s £292m haul, spread over 37 contracts, was housing work. This helped the sector perform well above the 12-month average of £290m, bringing in more than £353m of work.

Apart from industrial, every other sector performed rather below average in December, reflecting the usual festive slump. The public sector saw the most activity, closely followed by commercial work.

Overall business was down more than £600m compared with December 2005, when huge portfolios from Balfour Beatty and Carillion helped to inflate the total. Forward orders were a lot more modest last month, with civils and commercial work well down compared with December 2005.
Close behind Kier in December 2006 was Bovis Lend Lease, announcing £278m of work, all in the public sector. The bulk of this was a £250m Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project with Lancashire County Council, won by the Catalyst Lend Lease consortium, which includes Bovis Lend Lease, Capita Symonds Group, Redstone Communications and Halifax Bank of Scotland.

The project will be delivered via a 27-year PFI agreement. Construction of the first three schools in the Burnley and Pendle area began mid-2006 under an early works agreement, with completion expected in 2008. The remaining six schools in the first wave will be completed by 2010. There is scope in the agreement to build up to 40 more schools in the area.

Laing O’Rourke fell a place to third, with a spread of public and commercial work, including £50m of work for Nottingham University. It also secured a deal to deliver a £43m civic centre in Livingston for West Lothian Council, and £35m of work on Cardiff City Football Stadium, including the highway improvements necessary to cope with the increased capacity, as well as the demolition of the existing Leckwith stadium and the construction of a retail park.

Barr was the highest-placed new entrant in fourth, with 11 contracts worth, pleasingly, £111m.

Continuing its steady trajectory through the table, up five places to fifth was Miller Construction, with a largely commercial portfolio. This included an £81.8m mixed development in Aberdeen for Union Square Developments.

Balfour Beatty was next, with 97 contracts worth just shy of £98m. This included £24.5m of work in the North Lanarkshire town of Ravenscraig, which is undergoing extensive renovation.

November winner Carillion tumbled to seventh place. The contractor was awarded a £20m contract on Greater Manchester’s Metrolink network, and will replace nearly 20 miles of track on the Bury and Altrincham lines during 2007.

Skanska fell five places to eighth, bringing in just over £60m of civils and commercial forward orders.

Galliford Try, up two places in ninth, had a busy month in the civils and public markets. Osborne made it into the top 10 with just seven contracts.
Other notable projects included a £33.5m student accommodation deal at Birmingham University for Norwest Holst; £22m of BSF work for Lambeth Council, won by Apollo Group; and Rydon Group’s £22m office build in Birmingham for client Hyde Housing Association.