Chesterton goes Dutch with Desenco link-up

Chesterton Workplace Management was expected to sign a deal with Dutch project manager and property consultant Desenco at the end of last month – the first step in the facilities management company's ambitions to expand across Europe.

The deal will see the establishment of joint venture company Desenco Workplace Management BV, which will deliver facilities management on behalf of clients.

'There are no big facilities management firms in Holland and we will be going for large-scale projects,' said David Walker, managing director of Chesterton Workplace Management.

The start-up will take on work immediately for Dutch trade union organisation FNV, which occupies 80 buildings across Holland.

Walker said the joint venture, which is 50 per cent owned by his company, will use back-office systems in the UK. These include helpdesk facilities that currently handle 190,000 calls a day from all over the UK, and comprehensive client accounting facilities.

At the beginning of January, Chesterton's specialist offshoot, Matrix FM, went live. The company was set up after Walker's team was signed up to handle telecoms giant Ericsson's facilities management requirements in the UK. That deal takes Chesterton's total number of contracts in the last six months to 13.

Before Christmas, Reliance Security took a 16 per cent stake in the Chesterton group.

At the time of going to press, Trammell Crow Savills was expected to announce that it had sealed a major new European contract. This follows the extension of an outsourcing agreement with financial services group Amex into Europe, the Middle East and Africa.