Financial

Construction activity flatlined in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors survey. The organisation’s construction monitor found that headline workloads across all sectors of the construction industry contracted by a net balance of 1 per cent, compared to seeing 17 per cent growth in…

Barratt Developments has warned of a severe slowdown in the housing market, blaming the lower buyer-interest in new homes on political and economic uncertainty, along with higher interest rates. In a trading update, Britain’s largest housebuilder said that it was in a strong position to weather the oncoming economic storm.…

Troubled Britishvolt could sell a majority stake to an Indonesia-linked private equity firm, it has been reported. According to The Guardian, negotiations with London-based DeaLab Group could lead to a takeover of the UK electric-car-battery manufacturer and means construction work could resume on a £3.8bn battery cell gigaplant in Blyth, Northumberland.…

Contractors have only nine days left to join procurement discussions for a megaproject to build more than 1,000km of underground and overhead power lines. National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) published a market engagement document late last week for its New Infrastructure Delivery Onshore Programme (NIDOP). The package of works will…

Legacy claims combined with losses on some onerous contracts have pushed United Living to a pre-tax loss of £11.5m for the year to 31 March 2022. The contractor did not give more information on the legacy claims themselves, except for saying that they were regarding construction contracts. But legacy claims…

Keller’s share price dropped 10 per cent in the first few hours of trading this morning following the announcement of a “deliberate and sophisticated” fraud within the group. The London-headquartered ground-engineering multinational is set to launch an independent investigation after uncovering an overstatement of the results of a business it…

The UK steel sector has made a final plea to the government to maintain support on energy costs ahead of a much-anticipated announcement.  On Wednesday (4 January), chancellor Jeremy Hunt (pictured above) told business leaders that he will reveal in Parliament this week how he plans to protect businesses when…

Twenty-three construction administrations were recorded in December – more than one for every working day of the month. Data compiled by Creditsafe showed that 19 firms entered the process in the weeks before Christmas, with another four following before the end of the year. The total is down from November,…

Arup has seen its annual profits drop by a third despite reporting a return to revenue growth.  The consultant reported pre-tax profit of £36.7m in the year to the end of March 2022, compared to £54m the previous year.  It came as “charges from sub-consultants” and other project expenses rose…

Balfour Beatty has kicked off the New Year by launching more tranches of its share buyback programme, with an aim to complete £50m of repurchases from shareholders by May.  The UK’s biggest contractor has this week bought 404,476 ordinary shares at an average price per share of 343.9p through two separate transactions. …