Alfred McAlpine

Alfred McAlpine
Former type	Public
Fate	Acquired
Successor	Carillion
Founded	1935
Defunct	2008
Headquarters	London, UK
Key people	Dr Roger Urwin, (Chairman); Ian Grice, (CEO)
Industry	Construction; Business services
Employees	8,600

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Alfred McAlpine plc was a British construction firm headquartered in London. It was a major road builder, and constructed over 10% of Britain's motorways, including the M6 Toll (as part of the CAMBBA consortium). It was listed on the London Stock Exchange but was acquired by Carillion in 2008.

[edit] History

The company was established in 1935 by Alfred McAlpine, one of the sons of 'Concrete' Bob McAlpine. It was based in the North West of England and specialised in civil engineering.^[1] In 1983, it ceased to limit its operations to the North West, West Midlands and North Wales and moved into other parts of the country.^[1]

In 2001, it sold its housebuilding operations to George Wimpey.^[2] In 2001, it acquired Kennedy Utility Management for £52m.^[3] In 2002, it acquired Stiell, a facilities management and information technology network systems business, for £85m.^[4] In February 2008, Carillion acquired Alfred McAlpine for £572m.^[5]

[edit] Structure

It had three business streams:

Business Services: facilities management, information systems, asset management and health and safety management.
Project Services: the Special Projects unit was involved a broad range of commercial, industrial, leisure, educational and medical facilities and the civil engineering unit was focused primarily on road building.
Infrastructure Services: maintenance, renewal and development services to utility operators in the gas, electricity, water and telecoms sectors and roads maintenance services to local government.

It also owned Alfred McAlpine Slate, which was the world's largest producer of natural slate.

[edit] Major projects

Projects undertaken by the company included Dinorwig Power Station completed in 1984,^[6] Manchester Central completed in 1986,^[7] Devonshire Dock Hall in Barrow-in-Furness completed in 1986,^[8] the Royal Armouries in Leeds completed in 1996^[9], the Galpharm Stadium in Huddersfield, opened in 1994, completed in 1997 (and known as the McAlpine Stadium until 2004)^[10], the JJB Stadium in Wigan completed in 1999^[11], the Eden Project in St Austell completed in 2001^[12] and the M6 Toll completed in 2003.^[13]