21 May 2013
Outsourcing giant Mitie is quitting the UK mechanical and electrical (M&E) contracting market, the second major firm to do so in a month.
In a statement accompanying its results for the year to 31 March 2013, the firm said its M&E operations were generating "margins well below the group average", even though the company recorded overall organic revenue growth of 5% in the period.
Mitie follows M&E giant Emcor UK, who announced on 10 May that it would withdraw from construction to focus on facilities management.
Emcor UK, which employs over 3,000 people, said that the decision was due to construction market conditions and "customers’ changing requirements".
Emcor says it will complete its current construction projects but will not seek new ones.
Figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics showed an 8.9% fall in last quarter’s volume of construction output, and a decrease in new work by 10.7% compared to the same period the year before.
Meanwhile, as these firms retreated from the UK’s troubled construction market, another formed to join it.
On the very day of Emcor’s announcement, a new independent construction cost consultancy, Alinea construction, was born.
Two directors from EC Harris and three from Davis Langdon, both UK consulting heavyweights, founded the firm. A statement on their website says: "Alinea consulting is a business that passionately believes that there is a better way to deliver construction cost consultancy than that currently being provided in the industry."
