By Ian McConnell
With 14,000 staff, Lord Willie Haughey declares his City Facilities Management empire is “officially” Scotland’s largest privately owned employer.
And he sees potential for more huge growth in coming years from both facilities management and the new house-building division he is launching with Scottish property group Ediston.
Based firmly in the Gorbals, where Lord Haughey grew up, the City business now has a global reach. It raised revenue and profits in 2020, a year overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic. City recorded a 13 per cent jump in revenue to £1.25 billion.
Over the last five years, it has achieved a compound annual growth rate of 22%. The business made operating profits of £30.4 million in 2020 before goodwill, interest and tax, up 11% on the prior year.
City’s US operations are now not far behind the group’s UK and Europe business in revenue terms, with Australia also a very substantial contributor. And the group has built sizeable operations in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Lord Haughey revealed City Facilities Management has a projection of an annual turnover of £2.5bn by 2025, with a net profit of £105m, declaring: “This is with existing customers and does not include new business.”
He added: “Once the newly formed building division has constructed the 11,000 new houses, by 2029 [it] will have a balance sheet that has £2.7bn in assets with annual revenues of circa £110m. The combined net profit by 2025 should be £150m and, by 2029, £220m. The whole idea on this plan is to be able to build 2,000 new homes every year from 2029 without borrowing a penny.”
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