This is not to detract from the work done by Leo Quinn and his team since he arrived as chief executive of Balfour Beatty in January 2015, but the work that needed doing was pretty obvious. The contractor and support services specialist had carried out 45 acquisitions over the past decade.
It had a bloated cost base and was locked into several contracts that were never going to be profitable and was leaking cash.
Two years on, most of those problems have been turned around. Various bits outside the UK and US have been or are being sold, leaving Balfour Beatty focused on those two markets, with the exception of a joint venture in Hong Kong. Costs have been cut and management reorganised. A target