Joint venture: Scotland's FSS close to deal with SICBX

Sulzer Infra CBX (SICBX) is close to forging a joint venture with Facilities Support Services, the first facilities management company set up in Scotland.

The agreement is expected to be sealed in the next few weeks, with the joint venture going live in August.

The deal follows the purchase of SICBX by technical services provider Groupe Fabricom at the end of April.

FSS Group is headed by Stan Mitchell, the founding chairman of BIFM Scotland. Mitchell set up the company, which now has 22 staff, in 1990. 'The joint venture will give us a bigger platform and more financial clout,' he said.

Noting that the deal is still subject to final discussions, Mitchell added that the 'culture and approach' of SICBX was very similar to the FSS Group. The suggested new trading name of the joint venture is Key FM.

SICBX set up a subsidiary in Ireland last year under the management of Mike Cairney, who subsequently took over as managing director of SICBX in January. His appointment as managing director followed the departure of the founders of SICBX after parent company Sulzer decided to sell Sulzer Infra — the infrastructure services division of which SICBX was a part.

Over the last three months, Cairney has been drawing up a fresh strategy for the firm which will see it focus on four or five services areas including energy management, and for the first time, public sector work — in particular advising on private sector funding for projects falling under the private finance initiative.

The company has also recently launched a mobile phone management service on the back of its work with client Xerox.

Xerox outsourced the management of its mobile phone contract and day-to-day operations to SICBX, saving £1.02m in the process.

Cearney is also looking at an outsourcing approach based on centralisation of services to clients: 'The trick is to generate a product that will service clusters of clients — you can't do it for 100 staff, but if you have ten customers with 100 staff each in a business park you can'.

Groupe Fabricom, a division of Belgian company, Tractebel purchased Sulzer Infra's three infrastructure divisions: building services, engineering contracting and infrastructure services for £171m.