Aukett turnover halves as Russia and Middle East slump

Turnover at listed architect Aukett Fitzroy Robinson has almost halved as workloads plummet in Russia and the Middle East.

Revenues declined from £14.9m in 2009 to £7.9m in the year to 30 September 2010, as both regions had their workload cut to less than an eighth of previous levels. Losses contracted only slightly more than revenues, with the company’s pre-tax losses reduced by 58% to £789,000.

The company will now expand into Brazil by setting up a small office with a local architect.

Chief executive Nicholas Thompson said that work in Russia had been seriously disrupted by a wave of mayoral replacements, the most high profile being the removal of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov last September.

“The replacement of mayors temporarily meant that people didn’t know what the development landscape was like,” he said.

In the Moscow office staff numbers have halved over the year. Caution in the Middle East market, following the Dubai property crash of November 2009, has meant that the firm has
just two to three people left in its Abu Dhabi office.

Thompson said that Aukett was going to open up an office in Sao Pãulo with Brazilian architect Andreas Gyarfas by the end of March that would initially have three staff.

“We would expect to primarily be doing masterplanning on hotels, refurbishments and retail,” he said.

Revenues from the UK were also slightly down, which Thompson said was due to a dearth of activity outside the capital.

“The opportunities are very few and far between [outside London]. Developers simply do not have sufficient funding,” he said.

Staff numbers over the course of the year declined from 195 in 2009 to 146 in 2010, and Thompson said numbers would stay at that level during the coming year.