Clough chief executive Peter Bennett flagged plans to move into new sectors, including healthcare, at a Business News event this morning.
Perth engineering and construction firm Clough has flagged plans to move into healthcare after coming back from the brink of administration under Italy’s Webuild.
Speaking at the inaugural Business News Road to Revival; Stories of Business Resilience breakfast series at Crown this morning, Clough chief executive Peter Bennett shared future ambitions after a transformative year following the company going into voluntary administration.
Its subsequent transition to new ownership under global construction company Webuild has, according to Mr Bennett, opened new capital markets and set the business in good stead to explore opportunities.
One of which is healthcare, with Mr Bennett signalling the 105-year-old firm could move beyond its traditional energy and resources projects.
“One of the big changes [under Webuild] has been the access to capital markets,” Mr Bennett said.
“They’re a much larger organisation and so the access to capital and capital markets is certainly something the previous ownership structure could not have provided.”
And it’s the synergy with parent company Webuild, beyond just the cash, which Mr Bennett thinks will make the pivot to new industries viable.
“Being able to bring [Webuild’s] technical expertise and combine it with our project delivery skills has meant we’re able to fit into markets we previously wouldn’t have been able to approach,” he said.
“Just look at Snowy Hydro 2.0. We were not renowned as a pumped hydro or tunnelling expert previously, and now we’re very much at the forefront of that market now.
“They’ve got a very, very strong healthcare background at Webuild group that we can employ.”
Mr Bennett said with Webuild having more than 4,000 engineers and having built more than 100 hospitals worldwide, Clough would be well positioned to tap into the sector.
Among its ongoing projects in Western Australia are Perdaman's Ceres urea plant on the Burrup Peninsula, the Waitsia gas project, the Woodman Point water treatment plant and a number of ongoing Woodside services.
“In terms of where business is today, we’re in a pretty strong position. You can never relax on these things and there’s always challenges, but the Clough business today is in great shape,” he said.
“And as part of the Webuild group we are continuing to look at how we can deploy some of those new capabilities.”
Webuild exceeded 2023 financial guidance across its global portfolio in its first year as owner of Clough, posting a 43 per cent uptick in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to €819 million ($A1.36 billion).
Webuild purchased Clough from administrators Deloitte after two months of negotiation at the start of 2023, in a deal under which the contractor acquired a workbook that includes the Perdaman project, Beach Energy and Mitsui’s Waitsia Stage 2 gas development in the Perth Basin.
The company was purchased for almost $36 million.
