Mace grows PM business

As part of the strategy it opened a Bristol office last month, staffed by six PMs.

The new office will be run by Simon Doyle, supported by Jeremy Damrel, Glen Dyke, Philip Radford, David Stephenson and Scott Tacchi.

David Grover, head of commercial project management, said his division would hire up to 80 staff this year. He said Mace added 500 new project managers in 2005. The firm now employs 1,723 staff in total.

The latest new appointment is Anthony Ranger, a former director at Donaldsons, whose mission is to build up business in the retail shopping sector and help Mace get involved in such projects at an earlier stage.

Mace has just submitted planning permission as part of the team working on New London Bridge House, a 55,700 m2 ten-storey tower designed by Renzo Piano, next to the Shard of Glass tower, on which Mace is also the PM.

Mace is project managing the £200m Heron Tower on Bishopsgate, London, which last week won planning permission for three extra storeys and for widening the proposed structure.

Meanwhile the firm is breaking into public sector project management, a process that it began around three years ago. Mace's public sector PM division, run by Mark Holmes, now employs 250 staff and has a turnover of £16m. The breakthrough deal was a five to ten-year framework contract from Hertfordshire to oversee the county council's overall property strategy.

Grover said the move into the public sector aimed to shore-up the firm's long-term stability and diversify its income. "Margins are lower in the public sector, but volumes of work are bigger," said Grover.

Other key jobs include project managing the redevelopment of the Trocadero in London. The firm is also bidding for the PM role on the BBC's £200m programme of property upgrades. Clients include RBS, Natwest, Abbey and Marks & Spencer.

In Mace's results for 2004, group turnover was up 36% to £183m and pre tax profit was up 28% to £5.2m.