Industry update: new office, new job, new award

SI CBX parent group Sulzer has formed a new company in Ireland - Sulzer Infra FM - and will be advertising for a managing director within the next couple of weeks. The company already has 30 professional staff on board, mainly working on project management and FM for two big Xerox initiatives - a new European customer service centre and a multi-million pound manufacturing campus. Discussions are also underway with a number of other potential clients, says business development director John Weston.

Serco has been awarded a joint venture PFI contract to design, construct, manage and finance a new prison in Staffordshire. The 800-place unit is due to open during 2001. A 25-year contract involves about £85M in capital costs and about £235M in management.

AMEC, together with its client the Birmingham NEC, has won the award for best practice under the Energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme. A series of conservation measures were introduced in the exhibition halls, targeting a 15% reduction in spend. Thanks to those steps, and a complementary staff education programme, the targets were exceeded.