Last updated 31 March 2023
Aukett Swanke Group Plc
Aukett Swanke Plc is an international practice of architects and interior design specialists with a dozen offices, including two in London. The group’s other operations span bases in Continental Europe and Turkey.
The company works in the office, interior, retail, hotel, residential and education sectors and is one of the few architectural groups quoted on the stock market with a listing in London, where the group’s shares are quoted on the junior Alternative Investment Market. Aukett Swanke had total revenue under management of more than £14 million.
Financials
After a 22% fall in 2018, revenue subsequently rebounded but the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has subsequently hit income. Total revenue under management in the 12 months to September 2022 slipped to £14.0 million (2021: £14.7 million), while turnover fell back to £8.6 million (2021: £9.2 million). Less sub consultants’ costs, revenue slumped to £7.1 million (2021: £6.3 million).
Operating losses had been reduced but these have subsequently surged and in 2022 made an operating loss from continuing operations of £0.07 million (2021: £0.6 million). An impairment of £1.7 million took the loss before tax to £1.8 million (2021: £0.6).
To view the financials for Aukett Swanke Group Plc, visit Companies House and use Company ID 02155571.
Operations
The origins of Aukett Swanke date back more than 90 years but the modern group only emerged in December 2013, when Aukett Fitzroy Robinson bought out Swanke Hayden Connell Europe for £1.6 million to create a business with a network that at one time had 16 offices across the UK, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia and Turkey.
Today, the group works from offices in Berlin, Dubai, Frankfurt, Istanbul, London and Prague and provides services in master planning, architecture and interior design in the mixed-use, commercial office, hotels, residential, education and healthcare sectors as well as workplace consulting. In the UK, the newly enlarged group works across the public and private sector for clients ranging from Goodman and M&G to Trinity College Cambridge and Imperial College London to the Four Seasons hotel chain.
Aukett Swanke works with or for many leading UK main contractors, such as Skanska, commercial developers, including Commercial Estates Group, Grosvenor and Royal Exchange Investments. The group’s UK operations also include an executive architecture arm, Veretec, which carries out pre-tender audit work for major clients including Sir Robert McAlpine, McLaren Construction, Candy & Candy and the Qatari Foundation.
In 2022, the UK operation returned to the black with a profit of £211,000 excluding management charges (2021: £308,000 loss) on revenue of £8.5 million (2020: £8.9 million).
In Continental Europe was the best performing division with profits of £422,000 (2021: £330,000) on turnover of £180,000 (2021: £321,000). The main contributor was the associate office of Aukett + Heese in Berlin and sister joint venture company in Frankfurt.
Glenigan Data
Glenigan’s data shows that Aukett Swanke is working on many flagship projects in the UK including the £450 million East Side Locks development in Birmingham (Project ID: 06210095) and the £500 million Orchard Wharf Development at Tower Hamlets in London (Project ID: 20211920).
Conclusion: Bottoming out?
The group’s exit from the Middle East, where losses had topped half a million pounds in 2021, and a £1.7 million impairment from the acquisitions of Fitzroy Robinson in 2005 and Swanke Hayden Connell Europe in 2013 and a drop in revenue sent the grip spiralling into the red again.
The acquisition by Aukett Fitzroy Robinson of Swanke Hayden Connell Europe had led to revenue more than doubling but those heady days disappeared and the enlarged group plunged into the red. After reaching rock bottom in 2018, Aukett Swanke’s financial performance finally appeared to have turned a corner – and then coronavirus struck.
The problems have continued, but the wider historic problems overshadowed an improvement in trading in the group’s domestic UK market and in Continental Europe. The latest trading loss was just £72,000, while revenue less sub consultants costs rose 13%.
The group broke into the black in the UK, which is likely to drive the business. Commercial developments in central London slowed as the pipeline was unsettled by Brexit, but some major schemes are entering the pipeline such as the £80 million St Georges House Office & Retail Development in Wimbledon, south London but with uncertainty in the wider economy this is unlikely to go out to tender for a contractor until 2024 (Project ID: 21216678).
The UK will remain the focus and key driver of revenue and provinces have provided myriad opportunities. Major regional projects moving to site, including East Side Locks in Birmingham and the £63.6 million Aspire project in Bristol and the Cambridge Science Park Hub (Project ID: 18210177). Work at the £1 billion Beaulieu Park residential development, which will deliver 3,600 homes, will also run until 2025 (Project ID: 09354027).
The group took out a £500,000 CBILS loan, but the greatest challenges will come from a raft of withdrawals. Given the group’s wide-ranging exposure, the impact of the UK’s departure from the European Union will undoubtedly continue to have some impact. Outside the EU, the Moscow operation has also divested and the Middle Eastern arm sold but the staff, while had been cut previously, grew by nine people to 67.
At an underlying level there are some indications that the business is bottoming out and that the uncertainty that seemed to constantly surround Aukett Swanke, not all of which is of the group’s own making, such as the impact of Russia’s invasion of The Ukraine, may be starting to clear. Only time – and a wider revival in the UK economy – will tell whether this is really the case.
Winning Work With Aukett Swanke Plc
Companies interested in getting their products specified by Aukett Smith Robinson are asked to send their details into the relevant office. A directory of the UK staff is available here.
Key Aukett Swanke procurement contacts include:
Aukett Swanke UK managing director – Suzette Vela Burkett, tel: 020-7843-2000
Suzette.velaburkett@aukettswanke.com
Veretec managing director – Keith Morgan, tel: 07778-439633