Balfour Beatty, the UK’s largest construction group, is to cut costs by closing seven of its offices around Scotland and opening a single base at the Maxim Office Park near the M8 motorway that connects Glasgow and Edinburgh. The firm has taken a 10-year lease on 43,600 sq ft of space.
The company said the move to the North Lanarkshire site would “greatly enhance the collaborative offering across the Scottish markets” by consolidating its business units and functions on one site, and would also “significantly reduce” its administrative costs.
It added that no staff would be made redundant in the reorganisation.
Balfour’s move is part of a cost reduction programme launched in February 2015 by Leo Quinn shortly after he became chief executive. Quinn said the “Build to Last” initiative aimed to “maximise returns by optimising the value of an integrated Balfour Beatty”.
The aim is to simplify the group by cutting costs, concentrating on the US and UK markets, improving risk management and selling off non-core assets such as joint ventures in the Middle East and Indonesia.
The company made a profit in the last made £8m ($10.4m) in pre-tax profit last year, compared with a loss of £199m in 2015.
At the firm’s annual meeting earlier this month, more than 20% of shareholders voted against a proposal to increase Quinn’s bonus entitlement from 120% of his salary to 150%, taking it to £3.76m, a 13% increase overall. Finance director Philip Harrison could receive as much as 14% more, at £1.78m.
Image: Balfour’s new Scottish home (Lighfolio)
