Mace doubles profits, sees international expansion and launches 2022 Business Strategy

Today Mace launches its 2017 Annual Report which also includes details of its 2022 Business Strategy.

2017 was a year of stabilisation as we focussed on better management of project risks, improving margins, delivering service excellence for our clients, investment in innovation, being a responsible business and strengthening our balance sheet while creating our new 2022 Business Strategy. In summary, our 2017 Annual Report shows:

• Our profits more than doubled to £23m
• We invested nearly £50m in R&D to improve our productivity and enhance the value we add on current and future projects
• Our turnover remained broadly constant at £1.97bn
• The amount of international work we did rose by nearly a third to £665m
• The value that we contribute to society rose by 15% to £449m
• We now employ nearly 6,000 people across six continents

Our Development business is now involved in schemes with Gross Development Value totalling over £1.8bn, a significant increase on 2016.  

Our efforts to grow our Consultancy business also continued to bear fruit. Turnover grew by 17% to £267m in 2017. We also made investments overseas with the creation of MMQSMace in South Africa and MaceYMR in East Africa by acquiring significant stakes in local companies. Particularly of note was our appointment to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

Our Construction business focused on selective bidding and introduced greater operational controls that realised margin improvement while maintaining turnover. While our facilities management business, Macro, celebrated its 15th birthday in style, with turnover increasing substantially from £94m to £120m and growing internationally.

2022 Business Strategy

Over the last five years, Mace has doubled in size and capacity while delivering and working on some of the most iconic projects around the world. Projects like The Shard, Birmingham New Street Station, The Tate Modern Extension, Dubai Expo 2020, 2019 Pan American Games in Peru or Landmark 81 in Vietnam.

In that time our turnover has doubled from £1bn to just under £2bn, we have become a top 10 UK contractor and a leading international programme and project manager. 
 
In December 2017 we internally launched our new five year Business Strategy, and for the first time we are sharing this externally as part of our Annual Report. This strategy will guide our decision making up to 2022, provide exciting new opportunities for our people, ensure we deliver innovative solutions and service excellence for our clients and remain a resilient and profitable business.

By 2022 we plan deliver sustainable margins of at least 2.5% to further strengthen our balance sheet. We will also invest £350m to increase productivity and become more innovative.

We will carefully manage our risks across projects and bidding activity with the aim of maintaining fee and contracting revenues. We plan to deliver a more balanced return from consultancy and construction projects to make us more resilient to market fluctuations.

Our development management offer will be expanded. We will significantly grow our Consultancy business by securing major infrastructure projects and framework agreements globally and by investing in our North American, Indian and Australian businesses. Our Construction business will continue to deliver the world’s most complex projects while managing risks and expanding the amount of construction management work we do. Our facilities management business, Macro, will continue its international expansion.

Mark Reynolds, Chief Executive of Mace said:

“2017 was a good year for Mace. Our profits more than doubled from the year before and we invested nearly £50m in innovation to improve how we deliver projects and boost our productivity.

"Over the last five years we have seen incredible organic growth and delivered amazing world-leading projects for our clients. Our 2022 Business Strategy will help us provide even more career opportunities for our people, ensure we remain a resilient and consistently profitable business and deliver projects “in a better way”.

"Importantly we must now transform ourselves at pace by using the tools available to us.  Only by embracing innovation and off-site solutions will we tackle the skills shortages and become the leader of a more progressive construction industry.”

Stephen Pycroft, Executive Chairman of Mace said:

“The last year saw Mace return to a position of strength. Our cash balances are the highest they have ever been. By the end of 2017 we had secured over 80% of our work for 2018, and 30% of our company-wide turnover is now generated by our international businesses, something which will become hugely important to us as we diversify our business and continue our expansion plans. 

"Perhaps most importantly, our people have also been given more opportunities than ever to thrive and achieve their highest potential, making us one of the best companies in the industry to work for.”

Mandy Willis, Group Director for Corporate Strategy at Mace said:

“Our 2022 Business Strategy will see significant overseas growth, ongoing investment in innovation and productivity and the strengthening of our balance sheet.

"The next five years will be some of the most exciting and transformational in Mace’s history. As we increasingly become a truly global supplier of choice for challenging and iconic projects, it is a fantastic time to be working at Mace and be a part of the next stage of our global evolution.

"At Mace ‘pursuit of a better way’ is not just a strapline, it is a daily reality.”