Kier names Manchester as official office
The contractor has filed a notice to Companies House appointing its Fountain Street office as its registered UK address, but said this does not reflect any strategy to ramp up its regional operations.
Instead, the firm opted to register the 81 Fountain Street office, located between Manchester Town Hall and Piccadilly Gardens in the city centre, as the official address because it is where its central finance team and other support services are based, and therefore where accounts to Companies House are filed from.
Kier announced last year that it would vacate its longstanding UK headquarters at Tempsford Hall in Bedfordshire this June as part of a cost-cutting drive.
In March, the London Stock Exchange-listed firm reported that it had narrowed its losses in the six months ended 31 December 2019 to £41m from £45m the year earlier, but that the cost of an extensive restructuring and “challenging market conditions” had continued to impact its bottom line.
Place North West understands that, because of the Covid-19 crisis and subsequent shift towards remote working, it made sense to accelerate the planned departure from Tempsford Hall.
The company will now move out by the end of April, and from now on operate from across its regional offices, including in Manchester where 287 staff are based, rather than setting up a new headquarters building.
The 18th century Tempsford Hall had been Kier’s headquarters since 1965, and has had an interesting history including being used by the Special Operations Executive in World War Two.
London Stock Exchange-listed Kier is working on several high-profile projects in the North West, including Manchester Metropolitan Univeristy’s £35m School of Digital Arts and the £21m First Light Pavillion at Jodrell Bank, among others.
