QPM Ltd, the international project, construction and cost management company which belongs to the Corinthia Group, is to expand into a fully independent consultancy company and intends to get 60 per cent of its fee income from third-party clients within three years, chairman Gerald Borg and CEO Anthony Nutt tell The Times Business in an interview.
QPM, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, was initially set up in 1980 as the projects division within the Corinthia Group. Mr Borg says no company in Malta could offer project management services and Corinthia felt that having its own in-house team would better safeguard its interests.
"QPM looks after the budget, the speed in which a project is carried out and the quality of the works, all within the context of minimising risk to the client. The client, the Corinthia Group, felt that it needed people to protect its interests, and it employed people to do just that," he says.
In 2000 QPM was set up as an independent company, the same time as IHI (the Corinthia investment company) and CHI, the management company, were set up.
Mr Nutt points out that over the years QPM has been involved in more than 40 projects worth over €1 billion. "There are a number of projects we are looking into at the moment," he says.
The QPM chief executive officer explains that historically QPM has had a fairly low profile in terms of external clients, but the company has done external client work before, such as providing its services to Bank of Valletta when the bank's head office in Santa Venera was being developed.
"Part of the remit for me coming into the company was for me to expand QPM into a fully independent consultancy company, very similar to the type of practices I worked for in the UK. I worked for 21 years with a company called MDA and ended up as a main board director there, and I then spent 10 years with Gardner and Theobald, which is one of the largest and most respected firms in the UK in terms of project management and cost consultancy.
"I was persuaded to come here by a very persuasive man, Alfred Pisani, who offered me the opportunity of a much wider vision than I had had with any of my previous companies. We are now looking at five new projects in the external market where we offer a whole wide range of services. QPM has come a very long way in the last 10 years, from an in-house division to a multi-functional, multi-talented, multi-professional company," Mr Nutt says.
Mr Borg points out that last year QPM and Corinthia Construction Overseas Limited (QPM's Libya operation) had a turnover of €20 million and made a profit of over €3 million.
"We have increased our employees from 26 to 75. We sell services, we don't produce anything. I think this is the direction the country is taking," he says.
Mr Nutt says that the company's target is to get 60 per cent of its fee income from third-party clients in three years' time.
"We are trying to move away from the parent company to form our own niche in the market, which we can do. We are looking at Malta, trying to raise our profile here - we have just been appointed project managers for the Life Sciences Centre project - we are talking with some other high profile clients in Malta, we have just won our first independent job in Libya, we are looking at work in London, where we have a great opportunity, and are also looking at opening an office in London this year.
"QPM has a very low employee turnover, so many people have many years' experience working in particular markets and you can't buy that experience. We have already done a number of projects in Libya such as Bab Africa Hotel and Palm City. On the basis of those projects we have developed a cost data base for Libya that no-one else in the market has got. We know all about costings and procurement in Libya, we know everything about Libya, how the country works, and we can sell that. We are now selling that to third-party clients because people don't have that expertise," Mr Nutt says.
Mr Borg says QPM is based in Malta and the company opens offices overseas when it is working in other countries.
"We now intend to open permanent offices in Libya and the UK. These will be staffed by both Maltese and locals. We know the UK and Libyan markets well," he says.
Mr Nutt emphasises the fact that QPM's website and brochures don't talk about the company being part of the Corinthia Group as "we are moving away from that, we are trying to sell our services to companies such as Sheraton and Intercontinental."
He adds: "I was involved in Intercontinental and Grosvenor House in London, and one of my last projects was the redevelopment of the St Martin in the Fields church in London. I have also been involved in large residential schemes and hospitals, so my 35 years of experience have been across all sectors. QPM historically has associated with offices, residential units and hotels, but we need to diversify."
Mr Nutt says that in the last few months QPM has got much closer to the Corinthia operating company, CHI. "CHI operate owner-owned hotels, it also operates hotels owned by other developers. We have got a lot closer to third-party developers and we are looking for example at at Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Turkey, Egypt and Romania."
Mr Borg also mentions that QPM provided - on behalf of the Libyan Foreign Investment Company - project, cost and design consultancy services for the Burj Al Fatah Hotel and Commercial Centre in Khartoum, Sudan. "We then advised on a contractor to be appointed, and the project developed," he says.
Mr Nutt adds: "We now have another opportunity in Sudan to work for a third-party client there in a waste management project."
The CEO says that the company is currently involved in a number of projects in Libya, namely an extension of the Palm City project called Palm City Waterfront, which is a residential hotel marina, the Medina Tower in Tripoli which is a 40-storey residential and commercial tower and the Corinthia Hotel in Benghazi, "so there are three major projects in the pipeline in Libya".
Mr Borg says that when QPM was involved in the Bab Africa Hotel in Tripoli the country was under sanctions and the company ended up becoming the contractor itself.
"We employed 1,300 people directly on site, coming from 15 countries, and we had to import everything into Libya except the water, gravel and sand. I remember bringing in shiploads of cement, we learned about the problems encountered by the contractor, and we have become more efficient project managers," he says.
"We also manufacture our own concrete in Libya, we have our own laboratory and we produce among the best concrete in Tripoli and the surrounding areas. People buy concrete from us and we also supply ourselves, so we can control the price of our own product," Mr Nutt says.
"Our concrete factory came about as a result of Bab Africa. We decided to keep it when the hotel was completed. All the concrete for Palm City came from there and we intend to expand in our sales of concrete because we are known for our quality," Mr Borg says.
QPM has carried out both new construction and major refurbishment works in London, Libya, the Russian Federation, Malta, Turkey, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Sudan and Tunisia, with projects in the pipeline in Ukraine, Egypt, France and the USA.
Some of the projects QPM was or is involved in include the Corinthia Hotel in Budapest, the Corinthia Hotel in London and the Corinthia Hotel in St Petersburg.