Engineering growth in the gloom

But as soon as he started to notice the recession was taking hold, said Van Der Meer company immediately switched back into a “grass-roots” style of management.

“We made sure we reviewed our travel policy, reviewed things we were doing in the office. We brought on a lot of corporate staff we felt were necessary during our growth phase, but we’re putting that on hold. We’ve laid off a few of those staff, and laid off tech staff that were helping us through the boom – staff that weren’t required now.”

The company has certainly been affected by the downturn. Van Der Meer even received some calls from construction development managers in the field saying some contract work had to be stopped mid-construction.

But he says the company is still enjoying the benefits from long-term contracts with natural resource giants.

“I think all areas have been affected, but in the mining area in the large projects up north, they’ve hardly stopped. Rio Tinto certainly has put projects on hold, Fortescue put things on hold, and they’re starting up again so we’ve got a good body of work”.

“We’ve got contracts we can’t just stop. Some have had funding approved years ago and just cannot be stopped.”

In the meantime, the company is undergoing an internal restructure to determine which of its many areas of business aren’t performing.

“I’m trying to get back to a very well run, well-structured company, which will help us to improve our margins on our projects. For me it’s not just revenue, it has to be a combination of revenue and margin. In the end, the shareholders get a dividend, and the only way to ensure that they get a good return is to make sure you have reasonable margins.”

Rank	Company	Revenue 2008 ($m)	Revenue 2009 ($m)	% change
1	SWG Offshore	48,185,108	5,265,778	815.1
2	GR Engineering Services	106,163,408	13,947,962	661.1
3	Thiess Kentz	63,253,656	11,176,079	466.0
4	Coote Industrial	346,311,000	68,959,000	402.2
5	Demcil Australia	127,644,000	38,419,000	232.2
6	STI-Global	5,256,459	1,922,747	173.4
7	Skybridge (Australia)	17,276,559	6,500,000	165.8
8	Naomi Mining	256,462,000	106,201,000	141.5
9	Abesque Engineering	57,400,000	24,395,000	135.3
10	Clean Teq	15,219,000	7,025,000	116.6
11	Bechtel Australia	373,293,000	199,317,000	87.3
12	Haald Engineering	3,700,000	2,000,000	85.0
13	McCourt Dando	450,556,000	245,765,000	83.3
14	Coffey Mining	32,823,000	18,226,000	80.1
15	I.Power Solutions	108,300,464	61,131,741	77.2
16	VDM Group	407,255,000	231,110,000	76.2
17	Orontide Group	54,042,027	31,151,178	73.5
18	Controls and Interface Engineering	1,829,752	1,062,873	72.2
19	Ausenco	606,976,000	356,929,000	70.1
20	Nilsen (QLD)	30,202,605	17,871,386	69.0
21	URS Australia	196,586,000	116,325,000	69.0
22	ORH Limited	3,791,336	2,259,953	67.8
23	Logicamms	31,295,000	19,548,000	60.1
24	Downer EDI Engineering	1,152,257,000	724,566,000	59.0
25	Calibre Engenium Joint Venture	51,610,911	32,776,182	57.5
26	Coffey International	558,571,000	362,709,000	54.0
27	Ngarda Civil and Mining	65,957,154	44,705,650	47.5
28	Arup	194,212,776	132,007,584	47.1
29	Sinclair Knight Merz Holdings	1,064,186,672	728,560,836	46.1
30	Sedgman	250,646,000	176,569,000	42.0
31	GASCO PTY. LTD.	14,910,927	10,587,840	40.8
32	Woden Consutrctions	7,912,153	5,645,673	40.1
33	S.A.S. Autogate	280,000	200,000	40.0
34	Civil & Allied Technical Construction	104,215,617	74,473,501	39.9
35	GHD	939,105,000	675,520,000	39.0
36	KBR Holdings	492,672,711	356,421,697	38.2
37	Robert Bird Group	38,550,623	27,999,656	37.7
38	Uhde Shedden (Australila)	89,083,890	64,991,713	37.1
39	United KG (No.1)	3,487,203,000	2,554,590,000	36.5
40	NDY Management	65,846,297	48,302,388	36.3
41	Cardno (Qld)	61,311,000	45,346,000	35.2
42	Macmahon Contractors	792,667,000	589,881,000	34.4
43	Berme Fleming Civil	5,375,516	4,001,366	34.3
44	SMEC Holdings	231,555,000	174,078,000	33.0
45	BMD Constructions (NSW)	27,895,000	21,003,000	32.8
46	WorleyParsons	4,607,100,000	3,477,800,000	32.5
47	Hill Michael Associates Consulting	5,400,000	4,100,000	31.7
48	H&M Engineering & Construction	47,261,355	36,140,022	30.8
49	Austin Engineering	71,156,000	54,578,000	30.4
50	Bytecraft Systems	3,085,565,000	2,404,058,000	28.3