CJ50 Market data: Bovis shows new year resolution

PDF of market data January 2007

The new year saw a massive leap in forward orders, with January’s haul soaring £1bn past December’s to hit £3.11bn, the highest total since February 2005. This was largely thanks to a very busy month in the commercial market, with every sector except industrial enjoying much improved activity on both the preceding month and the same time last year.

Bovis Lend Lease moved from second place to start 2007 in pole position. It announced £335m of work as part of its share of the £1bn upgrade of Britain’s barracks, code-named Project SLAM (Single Living Accommodation Modernisation). Debut Services, a joint venture between Bovis and Babcock SGI, is managing the five-year first phase, which began in 2003. This will create 16,000 bed-spaces at more than 50 bases across the North East, East Anglia, South East and South West.

Bovis announced three other significant wins, including £50m of work at Bournemouth and Poole College; a £37.6m mixed development in London for Grandsoft; and a £28m office build for London-based Knighton Estates.

The highest-placed new entrant in January was HBG, boasting 32 projects worth a total of £373.5m. Its most interesting win was the £46m first stage of Glasgow’s Riverside Museum. Designed by Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid, the museum’s wave-like shape will reflect the city’s maritime past and become the new home of the Museum of Transport.

HBG also secured a £53.8m mixed development for the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire, and the £29m Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College in Birmingham.

Edmund Nuttall shot up the chart from 21st position to third by including its £200m contract for the remediation work on the Olympics site, announced last year. The work has been split between Nuttall and Morrison, with the latter working on the northern part of the park and Nuttall on the southern half. Work is due to start in the summer.

Inspace was the second new entrant to the top 10, with 16 schemes confirmed worth more than £192m. Its heftiest social housing deals were mostly in the South East, including £42m of work for developer Connected Consortium; a £20m job for Nene Housing Association, and a £15m scheme with Toynbee Housing Association. It also announced a £27.5m contract with Places for People in Wolverton.

Morgan Sindall was up six places to fifth, only a fraction behind Inspace, with plenty of civils and public sector work. Its largest win was £90m of roads work for the Highways Agency in the South East.

Apollo Group enjoyed another strong month, rising from 13th position to take sixth, thanks to a whopping £150m housing contract for the London Area Procurement Network.

Sir Robert McAlpine’s single £150m project, the regeneration of Bath’s SouthGate shopping centre for Multi Development and Morley Fund Management, pushed it from 15th to seventh place.

Frequent chart-topper Balfour Beatty remained in the second half of the top 10, dropping two places to eighth. Its £144m forward order book included £33.6m of work for Network Rail in Litchfield, and £19.7m of work on a power station in North Lanarkshire.

Up eight places to ninth was Wates, with a fairly even split of work across the housing, public and commercial sectors. Notable schemes were £25m of housing work for the Peabody Trust; a £20m John Lewis department store build in Liverpool; and £15.7m of work for Liverpool John Moore University.

Down five in 10th was Miller, whose three contracts totalled more than £126m. This helped push it up a place to ninth in the commercial sector table.