ROD DEAN'S 2006 REVIEW
<< 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | page 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 >>
E & C Hydrocarbon Review - The Global view from Europe. Looking back on 2006 & ahead to 2007.
So I will leave you with a few words from Mr Brikho and his vision for the future of AMEC. Depending on where you fit in Samir Brikho’s scheme, he is either your new pin-up or your worst nightmare. The former ABB executive took charge of Amec two and a half months ago and already he has cut £20m of costs. By the end of next year, he will have knocked out a further £80m - about a fifth of the total. Amec will have "lean and mean headquarters, very slim, very small", he said.
He will "eliminate regional headquarters in UK and North America", "control travel" and "curtail entertainment". Cutting costs will be so easy he says, he won’t have to do it "by picking the low-hanging fruit" - the fruit is so low as to be "lying on the ground". Amec, for example, has four offices in London alone and 112 in the US, he said.
Slashing costs is not his only skill. Like Amec, Lummus was taking on bad contracts and making poor decisions. Mr Brikho was stringent about focusing on cash generation and imposing strict risk controls. His plans for Amec are similar. To illustrate how radical he intends to be, Mr Brikho talked about his father’s old radio, with one big knob to turn to different stations and a small for fine-tuning: "I’m turning the big knob - I’m changing the station. This is a new broadcast. We’re not talking about fine-tuning."
Analysts and investors lapped it up. Having immediately sold the shares down more than 2 per cent after Amec issued a dire trading statement, Mr Brikho’s presentation sent the stock shooting up 5 per cent. Until then, many had hoped Amec would be bid for. After an approach from Australian group Downer in the summer, Texas Pacific Group and First Reserve made an indicative offer thought to be worth 450p a share or £1.5bn last month. The board rejected both but many expect it to yield eventually.
Lots of analysts seemed to be impressed. They described Mr Brikho as "a breath of fresh air" for the way he honestly appraised the group’s liabilities and bloated cost base. A former ABB colleague says Mr Brikho, a Lebanese-born Swedish citizen fluent in five languages, stands out from his peers with his humour and ability to put others at their ease. However, not everything he has touched has worked (apparently).
A quick check of his record also shows that he headed a joint venture between ABB and Alstom that had serious problems with new gas turbine technology. This became an important contributor to the liquidity crisis at Alstom. Mr Brikho has to hope that his detailed plans leave a more lasting impression than his presentation.
As I said last year ‘If success was measured on the number of Press Releases issued AkerKvaerner would win the prize hands down!’ – well this year another 99 have come from the pens of the Oslo scribblers - ranging from quite small awards to the regular announcements of disposals and corporate restructuring which seems to part of day to day life in the AK Group.
There were some quite major senior management changes in the spring - Kjell Inge Røkke stood down as board chairman in the Aker group – the old place won’t seem the same without him! That ‘old warhorse’ Inge Hansen who had led Aker Kværner for two years and before joining the company, was acting President and CEO of Statoil at a very difficult time, finally rode into the sunset of ’consultancy’. Executive Vice President of Aker, Martinus Brandal, took over as CEO and has presided over a successful expanding company.
<< 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | page 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 >>
Tel: +44 (0)1256 356 565 | Fax: +44 (0)1256 812864 | opportunities@lingmanagement.com