Skanska has confirmed that it will be restructuring its UK business into two divisions and making around 100 redundancies as the group seeks to improve its performance in the wake of poor results in 2017.
One division will cover building and building services, including facilities management (FM) and mechanical and electrical work, and the other will concentrate on infrastructure. The aim is to improve the company’s focus on customer service.
Last year, Skanska UK was merged into the new Skanska Europe business unit. In July, the company announced that it had made a £33m ($46m) loss on UK projects, two months after the departure of UK chief executive Mike Putnam.
And last month, the group revealed a 66% fall in operating profit across its global operations, and said it would cut 3,000 jobs and begin a €200m restructuring programme to cut its exposure to Europe outside the Nordic countries and leave the US energy sector. As well as the UK, the company has suffered problems on projects in Poland.
Gregor Craig, the chief executive who took over the UK arm from Putnam, said: "We are proposing these changes to simplify our structure, making it easier for customers to do business with us."
He added: "Skanska is a resilient and stable business with a strong balance sheet. We have some excellent and exciting opportunities ahead of us and this sharper focus means we will be in a better position to maximise them."
The building division will now be overseen by Steve Holbrook, with Adam McDonald, the present head of FM, in charge of services. Andrew English becomes the head of infrastructure, taking over from James Richardson, who will look after Skanska’s work on the High Speed 2 rail link.
Image: One of Skanska UK’s past glories: 30 St Mary’s Axe, aka "the Erotic Gherkin" (Londontopia)
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