Sisk top builder with €1.05bn revenue
JOHN Sisk & Sons has topped the charts in a new survey of revenues at Ireland’s building contractors. With 2016 revenues of €1.05bn, the company is comfortably ahead of its nearest rivals, Jones Engineering Group and BAM, which both posted revenues of €385m.
Altogether, combined revenues at the top 50 building contractors surveyed soared by almost €1bn in 2016 as the sector continued to rebound.
The group of companies surveyed by builders’ representative group the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) had revenues of just under €6bn. This compared to just over €5bn in 2015. Last year was marked by an uplift in activity in the eastern part of the country, particularly around Dublin, where there has been strong growth in commercial property construction, the report on the top 50 building firms says.
“[The report] is a snapshot of an overall Irish construction industry that has overcome immense challenges in the past few years and is once again delivering major projects at home and abroad and on the international stage,” the report says.
“Increasing demand in major urban areas should see a marked increase in residential development in the coming year.”
The list comprises the top 50 contractors who are members of the CIF and is published by CIF’s magazine Construction.
The magazine’s editor, Robbie Cousins, told the Sunday Independent that mechanical and electrical contractors were seeing a surge.
“One thing we noticed across the board was the emergence of complex data centre schemes at home and abroad and there are a number of mechanical and electrical contractors that feature in that,” he explained.
Cousins said about €1.8bn of the figure related to services being exported by Irish contractors. There was also a spike in hospitality and retail developments.
“It’s all contributing towards a sector that is ready to do business,” he added.
The results are based on turnover figures for their most recent financial year, sourced from CIF members whose primary business is in the Republic.
Sisk is the company which has been engaged to develop the Luas cross-city line. Other projects it is working on include Capital Dock in Dublin for Kennedy Wilson and the redevelopment of Cork GAA’s Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
Jones has worked recently on a new Microsoft campus in Leopardstown and a new plant in Blanchardstown for Bristol Myers Squibb, while BAM has been involved in the One Albert Quay and One Molesworth Street developments in Cork and Dublin.
In fourth place is Mercury Engineering, which has been seeking a buyer. It has worked on Dublin Airport Terminal 2, the Aviva Stadium and the Shell Corrib Gas terminal, as well as a number of data centres at home and abroad.
It also constructed a prototype stadium for Qatar’s ultimately successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup.