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Home , Aggreko, Balfour Beatty, BG Group, Diageo, Petrofac, Rightmove

BRITAIN’S MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES THE RESULTS

17th last year as it continues to do well in the growing LNG business, especially in Australia and Brazil. Veteran chief executive Frank Chapman is due to step down in the new year, and in October a row about overstated reserves hit the share price. Some pundits To arrive at the total scores, each company is reckon BG could become a take­over target as a result. The biggest climber in the top 10 this year is marked out of 10 across nine criteria, such as quality , up to fifth from 68th last year. The oilfield of management, value as a long-term investment, services group may not be as well known as some, but it is doing great business all the same. Its boss, Syrian- financial soundness and capacity to innovate. Here born Ayman Asfari, is one of the growing band of are the top 10 firms by these individual measures wealthy foreign entrepreneurs who choose to make their operating base and home, to the benefit of both the Exchequer and the employment figures. In fourth place is Rolls-Royce, one of BMAC’s most Financial value as a long-term Community and environmental soundness investment responsibility consistent high performers. Hardly a year goes past that it does not feature in the upper reaches of our table, 1= 9.00 1 8.61 1 Co-operative Bank 8.00 and it has topped its sector – aero and defence engi- 1= 9.00 2 Berkeley Group 8.40 2 BASF (UK & Ireland) 7.61 neering – for a decade. How apt then that the world’s 1= 9.00 3 8.28 3 Company 7.53 second-largest maker of aero engines picks up a new 4 Diageo 8.67 4= Capital & Counties Properties 8.17 4 Land Securities 7.52 accolade this year, thanks to our sponsor BSI. The first BSI Award for Continual Excellence goes to Rolls- 5= BASF (UK & Ireland) 8.61 4= 8.17 5 Croda International 7.47 Royce, recognising that it is the only firm to have been 5= Paddy Power 8.61 6= Intercontinental Hotels 8.00 6 Marks & Spencer 7.44 in the overall top 10 for each of the past five years. 7 Spirax-Sarco Engineering 8.57 6= 8.00 7 Johnson Matthey 7.40 Outside the top 10, honourable mention should go 8= InterContinental Hotels 8.50 8 Shaftesbury 7.94 8 J Sainsbury 7.30 to Rightmove, which makes its BMAC debut at 16 but 8= Derwent London 8.50 9 7.90 9 Rolls-Royce 7.29 also manages to walk off with the overall award for 10 Persimmon 8.44 10 BASF (UK & Ireland) 7.89 10 Diageo 7.22 quality of management and to share joint honours for financial soundness with Rotork and Shell. Rightmove Quality of goods Use of corporate Capacity to is a survivor – indeed a thriver – dating back to the first and services assets innovate dotcom boom, and it has worked to become the coun- try’s most visited property website. Its ‘low-friction’ 1 BG Group 8.83 1= Melrose 8.50 1 8.20 business model and careful cost control helped it make 2 Rolls-Royce 8.75 1= Petrofac 8.50 2= BG Group 8.17 an eye-popping gross margin of almost 70% on reve- 3 Rotork 8.71 3 BG Group 8.33 2= Petrofac 8.17 nues of £57.9m. Chief exec Ed Williams, who has 4 Diageo 8.67 4 Great Portland Estates 8.20 4 AZ Electronic Materials 8.07 been with the firm since launch in 2000, is stepping aidan heavey’s tullow 5 Johnson Matthey 8.33 5 8.10 5 Johnson Matthey 8.00 down next year, and can go out on a high. was voted top for both Aidan Heavey’s adventurous oil business, Tullow, 6 Spirax-Sarco Engineering 8.29 6 BASF (UK & Ireland) 7.89 6 Rolls-Royce 7.88 also does well in the judging criteria, voted top for 7 John Lewis Partnership 8.25 7= BSkyB 7.88 7 Rotork 7.86 innovation and both innovation and its ability to attract, retain and 8 BSkyB 8.23 7= 7.88 8 BSkyB 7.85 develop top talent. Its shares performed strongly this 9 Tullow Oil 8.20 9 Rotork 7.86 9= Paddy Power 7.83 nurturing talent year, thanks to new oilwells in . It has also con- 10=Petrofac, Rightmove 8.17 10=Babcock Int, Rightmove 7.83 9= Rightmove 7.83 troversially acquired a licence to drill in Greenland’s

environmentally sensitive Baffin Bay region. Ability to attract, develop Quality of Quality of blackspots such as Yorkshire and the north-west. Annual profits are up This has been a year notable for economic and political upheaval – and retain top talent marketing management no less than 58% to £214.8m. And if you can’t go abroad, make sure the effects of the Arab Spring are being felt well beyond its epicentres in 9.00 9.00 8.83 abroad comes to you – many of Berkeley’s smart apartments in the capi- Syria, and . Tensions between Israel and its neighbours are 1 Tullow Oil 1 Paddy Power 1 Rightmove tal are sold off-plan to overseas customers. But there are positive signs rising ominously, and we all received contrasting lessons in leadership 2 BASF (UK) 8.28 2= Tullow Oil 8.80 2 Berkeley Group 8.80 for rivals, including Barratt and Persimmon – the Government’s ‘New change from the two biggest economies in the world, the US and China. 3 Diageo 8.22 2= Virgin Atlantic 8.80 3 Aggreko 8.63 Buy’ incentive scheme has encouraged first-time buyers, and margins At home, the Coalition rumbles disappointingly and dysfunctionally 4= Johnson Matthey 8.17 4 BSkyB 8.58 4 Diageo 8.61 are improving as a result of lower land prices. on, and apparently there was a spot of bother across the channel over 4= Petrofac 8.17 5 John Lewis Partnership 8.38 5 Great Portland Estates 8.57 But what of this year’s other main award, Britain’s Most Admired the too. Meanwhile, the rise of social media has given a powerful 6 GlaxoSmithKline 8.15 6= Pfizer (UK) 8.17 6 Derwent London 8.44 Leader? The big news here is that we have a brand-new winner in the voice to many who were previously unheard, with the consequence that shape of advertising sage and WPP boss Sir . Sorrell is well a Twitter storm is now never more than a few minutes away – as the row 7 8.10 6= BG Group 8.17 7 Tullow Oil 8.40 known to readers of MT and needs no introduction, not least because he over corporate tax avoidance has shown. 8 Great Portland Estates 8.04 8 Rolls-Royce 8.14 8= Stagecoach 8.20 is the subject of this month’s MT Interview (p50). Suffice it to say that his Perhaps it’s not such a surprise then that, surrounded by volatility, the 9= 8.00 9 Domino’s Pizza (UK) 8.10 8= WPP Group 8.20 award is well deserved and proves that a good reputation is the best asset top of the BMAC table shows such stability. Six of this year’s top 10 also 9= Berkeley Group 8.00 10=Berkeley Group 8.00 10=Aegis Group 8.17 you can possess. Sorrell may have had a couple of spats with shareholders featured in last year’s, and 14 of the top 20 make repeat appearances. 9= BG Group 8.00 10=Royal Dutch Shell 8.00 10=BG Group 8.17 over the size of his £13m pay package, but the massed ranks of British The message seems to be that while companies and their employees Derwent London 8.00 8.17 business still admire him more than any other UK corporate leader. need to embrace uncertainty if they are to keep up with a changing 9= 10= BG Group – the business that resulted from the spinning world, evolution rather than revolution is the way forward. Surely we 9= Kingfisher 8.00

off of from back in 1997 – is up to third place from can all drink to that? mt Alejandro GarciaIbañez 9= Rolls-Royce 8.00

38 mt December 2012 www.managementtoday.com www.managementtoday.com December 2012 mt 39