Amec poised for a two-way split
Mark Kleinman The Sunday Times March 12, 2006
The AMEC rump could be an interesting nuclear play.
BRITAIN’s biggest construction and project-management group, Amec, will this week confirm plans for a radical two-way split of its business.
Details are expected to be set out with the company’s results on Wednesday.
Amec will sell Spie, its French construction subsidiary, and split its remaining operations into two separate listed companies, one focused on infrastructure work, the other on energy and processmanagement contracts.
The move will be the swansong for Sir Peter Mason, Amec’s veteran chairman, who will retire in September. No replacement has yet been found.
The new energy and process-management business will carry the Amec name, while a new brand is being adopted by the construction group. It is understood the latter will take in Amec’s UK rail business and its various private- finance-initiative contracts.
The energy and process- management group will concentrate on building up Amec’s portfolio of oil, gas and petrochemical contracts.
It is likely to bid for the billions of pounds worth of nuclear clean-up contracts expected to be awarded by the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority over the next decade.
Spie could fetch up to £300m, analysts say, with French groups Bouygues, Vinci and Cegelec tipped as possible buyers... |
