News

M Group Services has acquired a technical engineering solutions business with more than 1,500 staff.  The infrastructure services group has paid an undisclosed sum for BGEN, a Warrington-headquartered company that specialises in building services in sectors including water, pharmaceuticals, industrial and energy.  BGEN made a £15m pre-tax profit from a…

Morgan Sindall subsidiary Muse Developments has taken a third share in a new joint venture aimed at delivering 3,000 affordable low-carbon homes with a value of £1bn. Muse is teaming up with government body Homes England and institutional funder Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), with the partners injecting £54m of startup…

Nine major construction firms could be missing crucial internal audit functions that are key to identifying financial risks to firms and the industry itself, a leading auditing body has said. Of the top 30 firms in the UK construction sector, nine “may be operating without internal audit capabilities”, the chief…

FM Conway has reported increased turnover and profit, days after announcing its sale to Vinci.  The Kent-headquartered highways specialist recorded an 8 per cent increase in turnover to £579.8m for the year ending 31 March 2024, while its pre-tax profit almost doubled to £29.4m.  In a strategic report accompanying the…

Kajima is nearly free of millions of pounds of wind-down provisions associated with its former construction business in the UK. The Japanese firm, which announced its gradual departure from the UK construction market in 2005, spent £6.5m on “onerous commitments” in the UK sector over the course of 2023, according…

Scottish Water is looking for contractors to deliver between £500m and £800m of works under its ceramic membrane capital investment programme. The publicly owned utility company published a contract notice on 1 November inviting bids from firms to deliver the new water filtration programme. Up to five contractors will be…

A steel fabricator in Kent has become the latest construction firm to make the transition to an employee ownership trust (EOT). The move took place last Tuesday (29 October), Hythe-based Nusteel Structures Ltd announced in a LinkedIn post three days later. The firm said that becoming an EOT was necessary…

Stalling developers, building safety regulator issues and squeezed social landlord finances mean the government is on track to miss its 2035 target for remediating dangerous cladding, according to a spending watchdog. A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) said work to remove the most dangerous aluminium composite material cladding…

This week has seen a new building safety minister appointed and an experienced name will lead a new fit-out business at a tier one contractor. Safety switch The government announced on Monday (28 October) that Alex Norris is its new building safety minister, replacing Rushanara Ali. Norris, the MP for…

Less than 1 per cent of social value created by construction firms comes via carbon reduction measures, figures shared with Construction News indicate. Data from construction software provider Compliance Chain shows that more than 98 per cent of the £6.8bn social value created through its frameworks comes from easy-to-achieve measures…