Havelock Europa Share Discussion Threads

[mikepompeyfan] 25/1/2017 11:13

25 January 2017

HAVELOCK EUROPA PLC
("Havelock" or the "Company")
Trading Statement

In advance of its EGM at 11am today at Havelock House, John Smith Business Park, Grantsmuir Road, Kirkcaldy, KY2 6NA, Havelock Europa (HVE.L), the international interior solutions provider, announces a trading update in respect of the year ended 31 December 2016.

The actions taken in late 2015 to "rightsize" and simplify the business have delivered significant benefits for the business and enabled its continued recovery during 2016. As a result of these actions, the Board expects the trading results for the year ended 31 December 2016 to be in line with market expectations.

The Board expects to announce the Company's Preliminary Results for the financial year ended 31 December 2016 on Thursday 27 April 2017.

David Ritchie, Chief Executive, said: "The benefits that have accrued from the measures taken in late 2015 are clear throughout the Company and have enabled the business to trade in line with market expectations, despite the increasingly challenging retail sector.

In addition, we are encouraged by our current engagement with customers as we continue with our strategy of developing relationships with customers that value our wide range of services and, notwithstanding the challenging retail environment, the current order book for 2017 currently stands at £21m."

[diku] 25/1/2017 09:10

Because you are buying here to pay for their lifestyle!!...& this not the only one...many, many across the Plc casino markets...

[truthful tommy2] 25/1/2017 07:24

When will someone put a stop to this shambles. The ERP system is over year late in being operational. Who is responsible and why is it late.
The only experience Gillian Jenkins has in Retail is buying her husbands dinner at Asda. She has had more job titles than Martin Hilton ever had and he had a few. She has been responsible for the loss of every major account. Why is this being allowed to continue.

[petbar] 24/1/2017 16:03

I believe that you are correct Savvysurveyor, i hear from a number of sources that he is on the job market and has been given grace & time by Ritchie to get a new role, the shame of losing his personal office in Kirkcaldy will have hurt...

What will Kilkenny be thinking??

The move of Gillian to Head of Retail is an odd one, who thought she was qualified?

[savvysurveyor] 24/1/2017 12:23

The ERP system will be good but no one will give us a date when it will be up and running completely. I hear DF is doing a few interviews while he is down under so we may be looking for a head of retail sales again soon.

[neverforget] 17/1/2017 11:42

because Havelock crashed and burned at the tender stage. too many conditions. same with nationwide. couldn't agree to them because they new better. same old same old. looking at the pennies and missing the pound coins. destroyed relationships with contractors need rebuilding and estimating needs to be fixed. hows our erp system. rotflmao.

[truthful tommy2] 17/1/2017 09:23

Im sure Manchester is a lot closer the Co-op announced a big refit programme at the start of year. I get the point spreading your wings, but should the focus not be with customers closer to home. Good luck. Ill be back Hilton.

[neverforget] 16/1/2017 20:23

DF is oz for big customer meeting. hows ramsey?

[truthful tommy2] 16/1/2017 06:59

Darknight your comments have not appeared on the main page of the blog. The change of positions from retail purchasing to estimating and then has to create a new position shows the stupidity of Ritchie. If Robert Wallace is incapable of running Retail Purchasing or Estimating he should be fired not paid off. Ritchie is unable to resolve the issue of these over paid departmental directors. For me its because hes not really the CEO but the Main Manager not the Managing Director. CEO in title only. Hopefully the new Chairman will resolve these issues that have plighted Havelock for the last few years.

[truthful tommy2] 14/1/2017 08:31

Farooqui being removed should be the start of the clear out. You can bring in clients buy the hundreds, but if you can not deliver or demonstrate delivery on time and with in budget and safely. Clients will not take you on. While you continue to pay £255 a day for PMs to sit at home, and £1,275 for an average 5 shifts for site managers who work less than 3 days your not going to meet budgets.
Gillian Jenkins has repeatedly lost clients failed to understand whats happening at the sharp end of delivery. Shoulders no responsibility and failed miserably in getting the best out of projects. Why she remains employed has to be questioned.

[savvysurveyor] 13/1/2017 15:24

It looks like some of the changes to the management structure are happening as I see David Farooqui has been kicked out of his office at Kirkcaldy. He is going off to Australia on business so we might stand a better chance of picking up some retail work while he is out of the country.

[cannyman1] 12/1/2017 21:13

Neverforget, your long post of 10th January whilst informative was yesterday's news. However, I understand the point you were making. Would it not have been a bit easier however to say that in your opinion, the current leadership are uniquely unqualified to do their jobs.....that would avoid arguments with other people on the forum and you might instead get some agreements from others. There is no doubt that change is required in Havelock from top to bottom if we are to get some value back on the share price and I hope the new Chairman will make that happen.

[jbarker5555] 12/1/2017 15:08

goodolddays - Maybe you should read back over the thread, you might be able answer those points! :)

[goodoldays] 12/1/2017 10:54

Never forget. I take it from your poor grammar and low IQ you are a current employee of Havelock!!! I just wonder what share holding you have if any!!!

[neverforget] 12/1/2017 08:24

you asked a stupid question you got the appropriate response.

[goodoldays] 11/1/2017 14:32

Thank you for your polite intelligent response!!! If you cannot show respect, to other users views and comments then perhaps you should find a forum more at your level!!

[neverforget] 11/1/2017 14:18

coz it shows it isn't the market you numpty. we have had declining revenues from Havelock and all its previous bitter ex employees who visit here including that numpty ep. it shows peer group is going okay which ties into s&w statements. that's why. shows what a focused strategy can deliver compared to a company which doesn't have a strategy or worse doesn't even know what it is anymore.

[goodoldays] 11/1/2017 14:14

Why regurgitate a competitors statement that is over seven months old???

[neverforget] 10/1/2017 09:13

have some of that pls

[neverforget] 10/1/2017 09:13

Interview: Styles & Wood CEO on restructuring, retail & the future of fit-out
5 SEPTEMBER, 2016BY CHARLIE SCHOUTEN


COMMENT
Full screenTony Lenehan CEO Styles and Wood
Refocus from retail
New sectors, new opportunities
Differentiating through data
Brexit vote prompts new focus
Back in growth mode
Having seen turnover fall from more than £250m to below £100m in the depths of the recession, how did Tony Lenehan turn around fit-out firm Styles & Wood – and what are its prospects for the future?

“It certainly doesn’t feel like five years – more like five minutes,” says Tony Lenehan, reflecting on his first half-decade at the helm of Styles & Wood.

Meeting the fit-out firm’s CEO at the group’s head office in Sale, Manchester, Construction News finds him in a positive mood – despite the prevailing sense of uncertainty since the EU referendum result. And looking back over the five-year journey to get to this point, it’s understandable why his spirits are generally high.

The company posted a £2.2m loss in its 2009 accounts as the recession deepened, followed by a further loss of £1.1m in 2010 – the year before Mr Lenehan took over from former CEO Ivan McKeever.

Mr Lenehan speaks proudly of the way the business has turned around since the recession and the strong position it now finds itself in. Yet there remains a warning in his tone, stressing that the business cannot now rest on its laurels.


Turning around any struggling business can represent a mammoth task – so how did Styles & Wood tackle the challenge during some of the construction industry’s most difficult times?

Refocus from retail

An engineer by trade, Tony Lenehan joined Styles & Wood in January 2011, having previously run Carillion’s integrated property services business and held an executive role with Bovis Lendlease covering the North and its property services in the defence sector.

Looking back to the time of his appointment, Mr Lenehan reflects on the sorry state the firm was in. “This business was suffering,” he says. “Revenues had slumped to sub-£100m and there were lots of question marks around profitability.”;

“When I first came to the business, the real conundrum was that Styles & Wood historically had probably played the lead in the retail world”

That is put into perspective by looking back to before the recession: in 2006, the firm was turning over an impressive £268.6m; by 2013, this had fallen to £93.9m. Today, its most recent results show revenue of £114.9m for the year to 31 December 2015.

The main reason for the decline, Mr Lenehan says, was the firm’s close historical ties with the retail sector. As he speaks, it becomes easier to see how he tackled the business’s problems methodically and thoroughly, addressing each individual issue head-on.

“When I first came to the business, the real conundrum was that Styles & Wood historically had probably played the lead in the retail world. But in a recessionary environment, being very heavily geared to one sector – and one that equally is subject to wild fluctuations in a macro-economic sense – isn’t good.”

He explains that “something like 90 per cent” of the business was geared towards retail before the recession, while five years ago it was still “probably 70 or 80 per cent”, which he describes as an “imbalanceR21;. But he adds that, despite the close ties to a floundering retail market, the fundamentals of a strong business were there – its focus was simply in the wrong place.

“At the heart of the business, there were two or three hundred people who were very good at what they did,” he says, and that concentrating efforts on the retail market made little sense. “Pointing them at retail when there was no retail work simply wasn’t sustainable.”

New sectors, new opportunities

Accordingly, shifting towards different sectors outside its traditional core represented the biggest challenge for the business, becoming its focus in the first years of Mr Lenehan’s tenure.

“We needed an ability to differentiate our offer, to create more of a solution rather than, ‘Yeah, we can do a contract for you’ – we can actually do a bit more”

Now, around 15-20 per cent of the business is focused on the sector, with more and more work coming from different areas: banking and finance; commercial; health; and higher education.

“My first task was to get a much better handle on the skills and capabilities and how to leverage that in different spaces, with an eye on perhaps four or five strategic sectors,” he says. “[We needed] an ability to differentiate our offer, to create more of a solution rather than, ‘Yeah, we can do a contract for you’ – we can actually do a bit more.”

He is also keen to emphasise that the turnaround of the business has been multi-faceted. It’s not simply been a case of targeting new sectors, but “thinking differently” about how work gets done and the solutions the company can offer.

As he describes the schemes that have used this approach, it’s clear he is passionate about delivering projects that are both innovative and efficient. This has involved adding to the firm’s skills base, particularly regarding big data, analytics and data management.

“We have run a comprehensive ATM upgrade and switch-out programme for a bank,” Mr Lenehan says. “It’s actually several thousand project interventions that need the co-ordination from a major manufacturer to get the kit ready, and all the upgrades and training associated with that needs to be managed.”

“Our view is that most people will be pulled into [using more technology], but at the minute, it’s a clear differentiator for our customers that we’re investing in”

Because of the way the group uses technology and big data, he says, it is easier to manage jobs and frameworks that might be made up of thousands of individual projects at any one time. “Historically, the bank was running at a rate of about 20 projects a month, which was a lot for them to handle – we’re doing that in a weekend.”

He adds that it was “a hard sell” to get the investment in place, particularly when the business was in recovery mode, but he argued at the time that the rationale behind it was “blindingly simple”. “We can either get drawn into a play for commoditised work, or we genuinely show some added value.”

Differentiating through data

Now the business’s offering is much more diverse – and he adds that, by investing in “a different way of working”, he believes the firm has stolen a march on its competition. “Our view is that most people will be pulled into [using more technology], but at the minute, it’s a clear differentiator for our customers that we’re investing in.”

Using that technology – and taking a value-added approach to contracts – has allowed the company to win more work, with a particular focus on frameworks. These have helped overcome a lack of certainty around workloads, which was down to the firm’s legacy in retail and its struggles in the recession.

“[Five years ago], most everything was tendered, and the framework relationships – insofar as they existed – were all subject to a yearly renewal,” he explains. “It was very hard to predict what was coming next, and very hard to plan and resource for that. As well as looking at different sectors to focus on, there was a key issue around having a better line of sight of opportunity.”

“People will refurb and refit driven by lease events but also by the need for building efficiency. Whether IT or energy-based, doing nothing doesn’t appear to be an option anymore”

The focus on frameworks has now fed through to the firm’s business model across the sectors, and Styles & Wood’s retail work – previously its bread and butter – is now largely focused on frameworks.

Mr Lenehan says part of the company’s new approach is about “homing in” on grocery retail, where clients with fast-moving change programmes across hundreds of stores need a company with a specific skillset to get the work done quickly and efficiently.

Brexit vote prompts new focus

Another market the company has targeted since Mr Lenehan’s appointment is the commercial sector, which now makes up 30 per cent of group sales.

The company “did its homework” on the market before deciding to bid for contracts, he says, which has led to 70 per cent of its work in the sector being repeat business from clients such as Aviva. “It’s around making better use of space, or offering a more lifecycle-type product in terms of both fit-out and refurb – that fits really well for us,” he says.

And it’s here that, perhaps unexpectedly, the firm sees an opportunity in the property industry’s post-referendum environment.

With a number of clients and developers looking at pausing speculative and new-build schemes amid Brexit uncertainty, Mr Lenehan points out that the likelihood of growth in refurbishment and refitting is “absolutely on the money”.

“The last five years doesn’t automatically translate into a mad dash for growth. It’s about picking off the right opportunities for the right reasons”

“When you introduce a pause in speculative development, you don’t then turn it back on again a week later. It will come back, but it might be in a year, or longer. While that happens, people will refurb and refit, driven by lease events, but also driven by the need for building efficiency. Whether that’s IT-based or whether it’s energy-based, doing nothing doesn’t appear to be an option anymore.”

Other sectors Styles & Wood sees at hotspots for growth include private healthcare and higher education. The firm has completed a library refurbishment for Lancaster University, which Mr Lenehan describes as “highly complex by anyone’s standards”.

“In this day and age, the library is still the hub of the academic campus, and our view is there are still several hundred of these to come over the next 10-15 years, so having a reference point puts us in a great place for more,” he adds.

Back in growth mode

Despite the firm’s recovery over the past five years, Mr Lenehan stresses that the hard work isn’t over yet.

While turnover is back above the £100m mark and pre-tax profit is at its highest level for years, he says the firm will not rest on its laurels.

“[The last five years] doesn’t automatically translate into a mad dash for growth in terms of revenue,” he warns. “It’s about picking off the right opportunities for the right reasons.”

Drilling that philosophy into the business from the top down has been Mr Lenehan’s challenge since taking over five years ago – and maintaining that for the next five will be just as challenging.

But with safeguards in place and a diverse portfolio, alongside a strong skills base and steady income streams, Mr Lenehan is confident that Styles & Wood is moving from recovery to growth mode once more.

[gleach23] 09/1/2017 21:24

Not sure why but we actually seemed to have had market in the shares today - most refreshing!

Hopefully, in the absence of any Andrew Burgess selling and given the volume, a seller may be clearing or has cleared.

..or maybe I ask for too much :)

[ed 123] 09/1/2017 20:51

Perhaps because Styles and Wood announced an acquisition today?

However, S&W's target is a Mechanical and Electrical service provider, not another furniture fitter. So, it's diversification, rather than bulking up the core.

I may be proved wrong, of course, but I couldn't see anyone buying Havelock Europa. The combination of small size and alleged cultural problems would make it more trouble than it was worth, imo.

[mesquida] 09/1/2017 19:53

Good volume today - anybody know why ?