After a year of major mergers and acquisitions, engineering firm Altrad is looking to expand further in the coming months, says UK boss Paudie Somers.
When questioned on the job security of the 6,000 employees taken on by Altrad in 2022 through its mergers and acquisition deals (M&A), Mr Somers said: “As with all acquisitions, we will always look to create efficiencies within our back-office infrastructure and organisation.
“However, increasing our scale of operations generally requires additional people not less. Accordingly we are currently recruiting for a wide range of operational positions.”
The multinational industrial services giant led by rugby-obssessed founder Mohed Altrad recently published its 2022 full-year results, in which it described “another year of impressive growth.”
In particular, company co-chief executive Ran Oren pointed to high levels of M&A activity as “perhaps the most defining highlight” of the last year year.
“The Group has announced, closed and integrated numerous transactions that support our strategic growth objectives and will deliver a step-change in predominantly recurring forward revenue and the renewables sectors,” Mr Oren said.
“This additional diversification further expands the suite of specialist services that the Group can provide to its blue-chip customer base around the world and in doing so cements Altrad’s position as a global leader in this space.”
After a year of turning heads in the M&A space, Altrad is not looking to slow down in 2023, Mr Somers suggested.
“Our UK portfolio is diverse and it is growing through both organic and inorganic means,” he told Energy Voice.
“Our strategy is to continue to grow our business and we remain acquisitive and interested in new opportunities that align with our objective of adding enhanced value to our clients.”
The M&A dealing of Altrad UK has “transformed” the organisation, boosting revenue to over €1bn.
“During 2022, we added a range of complementary services to our portfolio in the UK, which were facilitated by the acquisition of Muehlhan’s oil and gas business, Sparrows and more latterly Doosan Babcock,” Mr Somers says.
“These additional skills and capabilities together with our UK existing business have transformed our organisation into a business of scale with a revenue of over €1bn, employing 10,000+ talented people.”
North Sea plans
With this in mind, what does Altrad plan to do in the UK, and more specifically the North Sea throughout this year?
The UK boss answers: “Altrad reorganised its upstream operations a two years ago – it is now positioned under a new leadership team, which is focused upon delivering enhanced value and creating collaborative relationships with its clients.
“It has transformed into a growing business and we have a range of attractive opportunities ahead of us and we are confident in our ability to grow our activities in the North Sea.”
As the firm looks to expand activity in the North Sea, many others are hesitant to do so as a result of the highly controversial Energy Profits Levy (EPL), or windfall tax as it is commonly known.
Discussing the policy, Mr Somers said that his firm “appreciate[s] the government is in a difficult position when it comes to windfall taxes.”
However, “many of the energy companies are seeking to reinvest their returns into new forms of energy production that will support the UK’s net zero aspirations,” the Altrad boss explained.
Ultimately, Somers believes that windfall tax is “a fine balance, but we believe the energy companies are best placed to direct this investment.”
