SGB lose 26m

HatterScaff

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Harsco loss climbs to £26m | Construction News | The Construction Index


Harsco Infrastructure Services has posted a pre-tax loss of £26.7m in its latest results for the year to 31 December 2010.

The performance is considerably worse than in 2009, when the access specialist was in the red to the tune of £10.7.

Turnover was down to £107.5 from £122.4m.

Harsco, known as SGB until 2009, is owned by US industrial services giant Harsco Corporation.

The split of turnover across the Harsco UK business during 2010 was:

Sales: £27.1m (2009: £34.4m)
Equipment hire: £27.2m (£35.2m)
Contracts: £53.3m (£52.8m)

During the fourth quarter of 2010, Harsco undertook a “large scale restructuring programme” to reduce the cost base of the business, which resulted in £8.5m of exceptional costs. The firm paid out £2.7m in redundancy.

In June 2011, Harsco disposed of its “non-core” accommodation and event services businesses to Wernick Group to concentrate on “blue chip construction and industrial customers”.

The value of its assets, chiefly plant and machinery, fell during 2010 from £158.9m to £113.8m.

Four directors resigned during 2010 – M.H. Cubitt, K Mouatt, J.W. Barrett, and A Maxwell – while a fifth director, G.D.H. Butler, retired.

“The company's result in 2010 was a direct result of the continuing poor market conditions in the UK construction sector,” said director Christopher McGalpine. “The difficulties faced... resulted in significant reductions in margins as pricing became highly competitive.

“In the light of these circumstances, the directors have considered the going concern position of the company. Harsco Infrastructure Group, one of the company's immediate parents, has indicated that the necessary finance will continue to be available to enable the company to continue to trade for the foreseeable future.”
 
If they paid better wages, they would get better Scaffolders = Better paying and more intricate jobs being erected.

Last blokes i spoke to on there were being paid £80 for a 4 hour night shift...
Fukking crap money, if you ask me.
 
Speaking as someone that worked twice for SGB in the past, it's easy to put your finger on the reason they've gone to the dogs.

Arrogance.
They had the attitude that they were SGB and the customer was never right. The customer had to pay through the nose if they wanted SGB to do their jobs for them.

Jobs for the boys
In SGB, if you did your work and hit your targets you were overlooked and had little chance of promotion. Their thinking was that if they had someone in a position that was doing well, leave them be. If it wasn't broke, don't fix it.
On the other hand, if you were a moron and useless at your job, you were on the road to fame and fortune. Promotions would be given to people who ran depots into the ground, people who were actually caught fiddling and people who kept jobs open to avoid charging up losses. I actually know someone who was caught drink driving, told no-one and when he was found out was promoted to a senior position in Hong Kong.

Little Hitler Syndrome.
During my second time SGB, I was told by the then area director to put all the lads on pricework for all jobs. According to him they should only be paid for what they did. If they earned £20 a day, thats all they were entitled to. He also decided that they got no allowance for working in the rain.
I pointed out to him that the lads had a contract of employment that stated they should work 39 hours a week, at an hourly rate. He singlehandedly decided that the contracts didn't mean anything.

Meetings.
SGB love meetings. It might have been around 6 years ago but there was skype, video conferencing and conference calls etc. SGB thought it was easier for 20 or 30 people to jump in their car, drive for 4-6 hours, book into a hotel and go to a meeting in the hotel the next day. This wasn't a one off, this happened on a monthly basis.

Overheads.
Up until 3 or 4 years ago, SGB in this country had 3 head offices at a time when other companies were watching their costs. Now other companies like Generation are weathering the storm and SGB are in the gutter.

Stupidity
The best piece of management SGB has enjoyed over the last 3 or 4 years was getting rid of the name SGB. Maybe it is just me, but you don't scrap the best known name in the scaffolding industry the world over. Its like McDonalds changing its name to Smiths burgers

Sorry for the rant but it just p*sses me off to see what was once a good company go virtually tits up in such a short space of time.
 
The sad thing about this is that it is probably true. We are all witnesses to the slow motion demise of a scaffolding giant and have no power to change the inevitability of the outcome.
 
i can remember the 80s when sgb had most of the industrial sector paying good wages as well they took some beating how things change
 
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