UGL Limited - Defence

UGL is a long-term partner to the Australian Defence Force where our design, manufacture and maintenance capabilities offer comprehensive integrated life cycle support solutions for a suite of defence assets. UGL operates at multiple levels within the support spectrum. Through our strong industrial base, we offer a complete range of services and packages to suit specific operational and maintenance requirements. UGL has strategically placed maintenance and fabrication centres of excellence on the east and west coasts of Australia. UGL develops the most cost-effective support solutions for naval vessels, capital equipment, ship systems, property and communication and security systems. Our innovative services combine with our extensive knowledge base to ensure delivery of tailored packages and outstanding results.UGL is a diversified services company delivering critical assets and essential services that sustain and enhance the environment in which we live.UGL is a leading provider of end-to-end outsourced engineering, asset management and maintenance services with a diversified end-market exposure across core sectors of rail, transport & technology systems, power, resources, water and defence.The business has annual revenue in excess of $2.3 billion, employing over 8,000 people (including subcontractors) across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.UGL partners are some of the world’s largest blue-chip companies, government agencies, private enterprise and public institutions.Our capabilities extend across a broad range of services and whole-of-life solutions for diverse industries and in doing so provide access to world leading, sustainable and innovative technologiesUGL’s vision is to be the preferred partner of governments and corporations worldwide in delivering essential services that sustain and enhance the environment in which we live and the communities in which we operate, for the benefit of our people and our shareholders.From Perth engineering to national construction company in the 1990s, UGL originated as a small engineering business, in Western Australia in the late 1960s, while tracing its official founding to 1970. This company, which came under the control of a group of Italian-Australian businessmen, focused almost exclusively on serving the Perth and Western Australian engineering markets for much of the first phase of its history. The mining industry represented the company's primary area of operations. The company became known as United Construction Group Limited in 1988, and in 1994 listed its shares on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).United Construction struggled somewhat following its public offering, following the loss of a major maintenance contract. As a result, the group failed to meet its initial profit forecasts, forcing the group to complete a secondary offering, selling 7.5 per cent of its shares to a group of institutional investors in the United Kingdom and raising nearly A$5 million in 1996. The company nonetheless remained profitable, raising its net earnings from A$1.4 million on revenue of A$174 million in 1995 to A$4.1 million on revenue of A$182 million in 1996.The company’s chairman at the time, Ivan Deveson, whose career included roles with Nissan, General Motors and the chairmanship of Seven Network, sought to transform the regional company into a national one. To this end, he brought in Dennis O’Neill as the company’s Managing Director and CEO in 1995. O’Neill had previously served as CEO of Brisbane-based Evans Deakins Industries Ltd. The new CEO took up the mandate of expanding the group’s geographic base, promising to add operations on Australia’s east coast.O’Neill made good on his promise in 1996, when he reached a partnership agreement with Monadelphous Minerals & Energy to build a processing plant for BHP Minerals Pty in Cannington, Queensland. United Construction and Monadelphous had previously worked together on another project for BHP, constructing the world’s largest sand mining dredge in Beenup. United reported other good news in 1996, securing a series of contracts, including an A$80 million maintenance contract with the Water Authority of Western Australia and a contract to build a direct-reduction iron project for BHP at Port Hedland.