Laing O'Rourke, an international engineering and construction company with a major presence in UK, Australia and the Middle East, has completed a streamlining of its corporate structure to create a single, consolidated UK trading group under Laing O’Rourke Holdings and to reduce the number of legal entities in the UK group. 

 

The changes create a new long-term structure for the business’ Europe Hub, reducing administration costs and enhancing financial reporting to stakeholders.

 

The consolidated UK trading group will comprise five operating entities:

 

*Laing O’Rourke Delivery (new name for Laing O'Rourke Construction), which will comprise the Buildings and Infrastructure trading businesses;

 

*Explore 2050 Engineering, comprising Expanded, the specialist civils and structures business, and Crown House Technologies, the specialist MEP business;

 

*Explore 2050 Manufacturing, which will include Laing O’Rourke’s two UK manufacturing facilities – Explore Manufacturing in Nottinghamshire and CHt Manufacturing in the West Midlands – and well as geotechnical business Expanded Piling, and specialist stone contractor Vetter;

 

*Select Plant Hire remains a standalone trading business for cranes, plant and equipment; and

 

*Laing O’Rourke Services, made up of employment entities, as well as specialist digital design and recruitment businesses.

 

Seamus French, Europe Hub Managing Director and CEO-designate said: "This much simpler corporate structure is a positive move for the business and all our stakeholders. The restructure will simplify our financial reporting process and ensure we can run our corporate structure more efficiently, allowing management to focus their time on running the core trading companies that will drive the growth of the business."

 

Madeleina Loughrey-Grant, Group Director of Legal and Chair of the Group’s Sustainability Steering Committee, said: "These structural changes represent another step forward in our governance journey, making compliance and governance simpler and streamlining further our corporate governance and ESG reporting."

 

Laing O’Rourke however, made it clear that the changes do not impact the leadership teams of any of its specialist trading entities and will not affect the delivery of live projects. 

 

The business has informed key clients of the simplified structure and is engaging with counterparties to a small portfolio of contracts which are planned to transfer to different trading entities, it added.