The acquisition, which is Costain’s second in six months, will enhance its existing care and maintenance offering.
Costain said Promanex would provide it with access to new markets, customers and services in the strategically important power, nuclear decommissioning and petrochemical market. More crucially, it provides a solid footing in the facilities management sector, an area that Costain is looking to strengthen.
Darren James, the managing director of Costain’s Infrastructure Division will be responsible for the business, while Tim Bowen, Costain’s Highways Director, has been appointed as Integration Director with the task of looking at ways of cross-selling what Promanex does into the wider Costain business.
Tim Bowen commented:
“This acquisition fits in perfectly with our wider Group strategy, which is to broaden our customer offering in care and maintenance. An integrated approach is required by our large blue-chip customers as they look to award larger and longer contracts to fewer more capable support services business on a combined design, construct, operate and maintain basis.”
Promanex, which operates in the facilities management, repair, maintenance and general asset management sector, will broaden Costain’s customer offering and help generate significant growth in volume and profitability as a result of being able to offer through life-cycle asset management to its customers.
Operating across the UK and Ireland, Promanex’s customer base includes a raft of blue-chip companies like Conoco Philips, EDF, E.ON, Magnox, RWE and SSE. The business provides a range of services in the management, operation, maintenance and repair of customers’ sites and plant assets, including hard and soft facilities management, water services, such as water treatment and hygiene, specialist industrial cleaning and outage support, as well as mechanical and electrical services such as power station materials, bi-product systems and emission treatment systems.
Promanex’s Managing Director Mark Dixon, who will become Sector Director for Industrial Services, said:
“We have shared ambitions with Costain, not just to grow the business but to provide excellence in health and safety and in service delivery. We have a strong customer base as well as proven capabilities in our chosen areas and, combined with Costain’s consulting, maintenance and experience of project delivery, believe it significantly enhances what we can offer our customers.”
In recent years Costain has taken steps to transform its business through the implementation of its ‘Choosing Costain’ strategy, from being a civil engineering contractor into one of the UK’s leading Tier One engineering solutions providers.
A key part of Costain's strategy has been to align itself more closely with its blue-chip customers in key chosen sectors where spending plans are underpinned by strategic national needs, regulatory commitments and essential maintenance requirements.
Costain already derives around 25% of its overall revenues from support services-related activities, with around 12% of its earnings generated from the care sector. The company also has serious ambitions to grow the care and maintenance side of its business and to double its profit over the medium-term and views the acquisition of Promanex, which employs over 1000 people, along with the acquisition of front-end engineering and operations support services business ClerkMaxwell in April, with a firm base from which to realise those ambitions.