Everwarm back with £12m of contracts

AN ENERGY efficiency company set up in February by four former senior executives at Eaga, the listed firm acquired by outsourcing giant Carillion this year, has secured £12 million of contracts in its first seven months of trading.

Michael McMahon, who was previously group operations director at Eaga – now called Carillion Energy Services – resurrected the Everwarm brand name for the new venture, which is based in Bathgate.

Eaga acquired Everwarm in 2006 when it was Scotland’s largest insulation and heating provider, but the brand name became defunct after the takeover.

McMahon has teamed up with three former Eaga colleagues to take advantage of government drives to improve the energy efficiency both of domestic housing stock and public sector properties. Its services include cavity wall insulation, fitting air source heat pumps, loft insulation and installing solar panels.

Everwarm hit turnover of £1m after five months, McMahon said, and he expects it to reach £10m after a year.

The group, backed by Royal Bank of Scotland, is trying to position itself as a Scottish provider of energy efficiency services in a market that is currently dominated by England-headquartered companies with regional offices north of the Border.

The firm’s clients so far include Fife Council, Glasgow City Council, Dundee City Council, ScottishPower, British Gas and EDF Energy.

“We’ve been very fortunate in that we launched the business at a time when there was a large government procurement process going on,” McMahon said.

He said he felt confident of further strong growth despite the UK government’s recent controversial decision to cut feed-in tariffs for solar panels.

“It seems as though it [solar energy] was only just getting off the ground and there has been an almost instant decision to stop it in six weeks,” he said.

McMahon admitted the changes are likely to have a “fairly dramatic” effect on that side of the business in the short term, but insisted: “We are not dependent on any one particular work stream”.

The firm’s workforce is already “in the seventies”, and provides work for a further 50-60 through contractors.