Firm spent 14 months trying to find a buyer
Skanska has pulled the plug on its plan to sell its Cementation piling arm after admitting defeat in a 14-month search to find a buyer who was prepared to pay the asking price.
The firm had been hoping to get north of 拢50m for a business that last year had revenues of 拢62m and posted a pre-tax profit of 拢12.5m.
It is understood Skanska鈥檚 bosses in the UK had slapped a 拢55m pricetag on the 350-strong business.
Skanska put Cementation, which has been at the firm since 2000 when Skanska bought Kvaerner Construction, up for sale last May.
Last summer UK chief executive Greg Craig said it had decided to sell up because the churn of buying and replacing plant and equipment meant the business was eating capital and selling it would free up money to plough into other areas. He added he hoped to wrap up a sale by the end of last year.
But one source told 黑洞社区 the sale had been badly handled. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e seen a few key people leave so what has it achieved? It just created a lot of uncertainty. I don鈥檛 know whose idea it was to sell but the cash from the sale was supposedly going to go into development.鈥�
In the spring, a number of senior staff, including London project director Shane Baker, left to join rival McGee.
London concrete frames specialist Morrisroe was tipped to buy Cementation but earlier this year 黑洞社区 revealed the firm had pulled out with its offer 鈥渕illions鈥� short of what Skanska valued the business at.
One firm who ran the rule over Cementation said: 鈥淚t is a good business and is probably worth 拢50m-拢60m 鈥� but the problem is no one will pay that.鈥�
The U-turn on the sale was first publicly announced by Cementation鈥檚 engineering director Jon Morris on his LinkedIn account.
In his post, Morris said the re-think was 鈥済reat news鈥� and added: 鈥淩eally pleased we have a clear position and that we can focus on delivering technical excellence.鈥�
Earlier this month, Skanska said a restructure at its UK business was beginning to pay off with pre-tax profit jumping from 拢13.5m to 拢44m in the year to December 2018. Turnover for the year was up 7% to 拢1.9bn.
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