CJ50 Market data: Bovis wastes no time getting back on top

PDF of market data March 2007

Bovis Lend Lease was back at the top of the CJ50 table in March after just a month away, thanks to a huge waste PFI deal with Lancashire County Council and Blackpool Council.

Bovis will design, construct and operate two waste management and recycling plants to handle household waste for more than 1.4 million people
over a 25-year term. With an initial development cost of £320m, construction will begin in mid 2007, with the first of the two plants expected to become fully operational in 2010.

Bovis has committed 50% of equity and loan stock to the project company, about £26m.

Rok shot up 18 places to second, winning £240m of housing work for Daventry District Council. This helped cement Rok’s solid lead at the head of the housing sector table, having won nearly £730m-worth of housing work during the past 12 months, over  £200m more than nearest rival Kier.
It was an extremely busy month for housing, following a buoyant February, with forward orders in the sector standing at nearly £922m in
March, up from £661m. This was more than double the average figure of just under £400m for the previous 12 months. The infrastructure and industrial also enjoyed above-average forward orders.

Morgan Sindall was up three places in third, thanks to subsidiary Morgan Est’s £250m share of National Grid’s contracts to upgrade and develop the electricity transmission network across England and Wales. The works are required to connect new infrastructure such as wind farms and other new electricity generating plants.

February chart topper Balfour Beatty fell to fourth. Its most significant announcement for March was design and build contracts worth £111m awarded by Grosvenor, the privately-owned international property group, for the work on the eastern part of the Paradise Project in Liverpool.
This part of the project consists of some 15 buildings including more than 50 new retail units, 160 apartments and three commercial buildings,
together with 550 car parking spaces and the refurbishment of other buildings.

The work will involve five Balfour Beatty companies, namely Balfour Beatty Construction, Mansell, Balfour Kilpatrick, Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering and Stent Foundations.

A new entrant in fifth position, Lakehouse Contracts, announced a number of sizeable London-based housing schemes, including a £150m project for the London Area Procurement Network. This also won the company a new entry position at ninth in the housing sector table.

Kier was down four places to sixth, announcing 40 projects worth a total of £156m in the housing, commercial and public sectors.

FM Conway was the second-highest new entry in seventh, boasting a couple of highway services contracts in London for the boroughs of Bexley and Lambeth, valued at £64m and £80m respectively. By the time the Bexley contract is completed, FM Conway will have been working in partnership with the borough for almost 27 years.

Laing O’Rourke was steady in eighth place, with just six contracts worth £108m, largely in the housing and commercial markets. It rose one place to fourth in the housing sector table, and two places, also to fourth, in the commercial chart.

New in ninth position was Taylor Woodrow, winning work in every sector in March bar industrial.

Carillion remained in the top 10, albeit down six places from fourth in February. The firm won a further £24m contract with student accommodation provider Unite Group. The Curzon Gateway development is Carillion’s third contract in Birmingham for Unite.