Interior Services sees Scottish operations grow to £40m level

Construction management firm Interior Services Group has secured £40 million of work in Scotland since opening its first office north of the Border in November.

The firm, which provides refurbishment, new-build and fit-out services as a main contractor, secured work including completion of a bottling hall for Diageo, a regeneration scheme for Home Scotland and a luxury accommodation facility in St Andrews.

Finance director Jonathan Houlton said Interior Services operated a number of regional offices and had been looking for a Scottish base for some time.

He said the company initially looked into acquiring part of Rok's former Scottish business, but after failing to agree a deal with the liquidators, it hired much of its management team in a new office in Glasgow instead. They used existing contacts to quickly secure a number of contracts for their new employer.

Houlton said: "It's a new base for us and we would like to see it grow. The team we picked up have some good relationships with quite a wide company base and we hope to see things develop from there.

"We also have national clients as a wider group, such as big supermarkets and banks, and I'm sure there will be opportunities to service these clients out of the new base more easily than doing it from England."

ISG's Glasgow office employs 43 people.

The boost from the new team helped the firm to announce yesterday UK contracts worth 120m since November. The company also said it was the preferred bidder on three other schemes worth 90m.

Outside Scotland, ISG has secured projects for Imperial College and British Land in London, Dudley College in the midlands, Network Rail in Yorkshire and BAE in north-west England.

The company had previously reported a recovery in spending by its private-sector customers.