An April 3 bid by Canada-based global design giant SNC-Lavalin to buy U.K. engineer Atkins, valued at $2.6 billion, has been confirmed by both firms’ boards and further indicates a resurgence in industry sector consolidation, observers say.
The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will cancel a 14-year contract worth about $7.7 billion awarded in 2014 and pay over $122 million compensation to the U.S.-based consortium that failed to win the contract.
The architecture and structure of London’s emerging 62-story building at 22 Bishopsgate bear no resemblance to its predecessor, called the Pinnacle, initially intended for the same site but abandoned soon after coming out of the ground.
Efforts to improve lagging construction productivity have largely failed, notably in the U.S., but skills shortages and increasing constraints on migration likely will inflate pay and force productivity improvements across the globe, according to a recent construction-industry survey and forecast by the McKinsey Global Institute.
The world’s first tidal lagoon power plant could move forward as a result of the United Kingdom’s planned departure from the European Union, maybe in 2019.
Hundreds of components of Victorian-era gasholders have found new life close to their original London home as enclosures for three new, high-end apartment blocks.