McKeon Group launches new technology company as part of growth plan
IRISH construction contractor McKeon Group has launched a separate technology company, Hereworks, as part of a €6.4m investment in the group over the next three years.
Hereworks, which is to be headed by Tomás Mac Eoin, a member of the McKeon family, was previously the technology division in McKeon Group. The group, which will retain ownership of the company, is to devote €3.6m of the €6.4m investment to establishing Hereworks as a building automation and digital transformation specialist.
McKeon Group decided to spin the 20-person strong division out into a separate company following its growth in recent years, which saw its revenue rise to €5.5m last year.
Hereworks is expecting to add 16 new employees to the business next year and a further 25 by the end of 2021. It forecasts further revenue growth to €8.4m, targeting profits in excess of 30pc of this. Mac Eoin said the decision was based on establishing the technology as clearly separate from McKeon Group’s construction business.
“People were phoning and saying, ‘hang on, you’re McKeon Group, the builders’,” he said. “There was a hangup on the name, so we thought, ‘let’s relaunch this’.”
The technology division at McKeon counted AIB, EY and Citrix among its customers in Ireland.
It also exported its products and services to the UK and Belgium. As Hereworks, the company has already won contracts in the UK and Greece.
Mac Eoin said Hereworks, which has been working with Enterprise Ireland, is currently reviewing an export plan. “Our exports to date have been mainly organic,” he said. “We will be targeting places in future.”
By April 2022, Hereworks hopes to be achieving exports worth €2m in a new market.