Travellers' tales

On paper it should be relative easy to justify, and implement. Who would not be tempted by huge, untapped emerging international markets complete with growth figures to die for and hungry clients crying out for your expertise and experience. However, if you ever needed a more compelling case study on why foreign expansion is far from easy, then the Nakheel saga stands as monument to where similarly eager adventurers have journeyed and fallen.

The £250m worth of fees still owed to British consultants by the powerful Dubai-based developer Nakheel may look like a drop in the ocean in relation to its £10bn of debt, but behind every UK creditor is a story of retrenchment, relocation and wider suffering. And it is likely that more firms working abroad will bend under the weight of either regional economic downturns or the perils of local systems.

Foreign ventures can be hazardous, and exciting, but many firms have little option but to sign up if they are either to stay afloat or satisfy

profit-hungry boards and shareholders. Forecasters broadly agree on the dreary state of UK construction, and the economic and financial indicators could not be starker. And with the figures, sentiment continues to wane, even with good news such as the revelation that British Land has up to £3bn in the bank to throw at development opportunities. So more and more companies continue to follow those first pioneers and chase the dream of profitable growth.

Nor can they be afford to be picky. Firms out of other options may simply have no choice but to engage with powerful foreign clients who are struggling with debts. Growth strategies will continue to be unpicked and scrutinised, but what the Nakheel situation puts into context is the merits of the much-maligned UK legal and regulatory framework. Whatever its inadequacies, by comparison with its international equivalents, it’s certainly not to be taken for granted.          

The new age of rail

The rebuilding of Blackfriars station is a little bit special to Building. The bridge on which the station is being built is right outside our office window, so there’s plenty of workplace fun to be derived from speculating about day-to-day site activity, such as why 10 workers in neon high-vis were recently clustered around a mystery object on the ground. But there’s also a wider fascination, as the scheme is the first station to be built over a river in 185 years of railway history. It’s intriguing to watch how they go about it, as the flotilla of boats used for widening the bridge and transporting materials file up and down the Thames, and to see all the activity on the bridge itself, from repairs to the deck to station canopy installation.

At the big picture level it’s reassuring to be reminded that despite this week’s gloomy ONS figures showing that construction output declined 3.3%at least infrastructure work, particularly rail, is still relatively healthy. You can celebrate this with us and find out more about this fascinating project in our feature on Blackfriars.