It is fair to say that by the end of 2008, Aedas was feeling its fair share of trepidation. There were concerns over taking the business forward in markets such as Dubai, Macau and India, which had fallen away quite quickly and where the pipeline of projects just didn’t seem to be there.

All the more surprising then that the anticipated shortfall in projects was not nearly as bad as expected and that markets such as Abu Dhabi, Qatar and China have all provided a very real boost to the company.

Back in January, it was pessimistically forecasted that Aedas’ revenues could fall by as much as 40 per cent if the recession worsened; today that figure has been revised upward to around 25 per cent and, as the year has progressed, the practice has received a number of large commissions, providing a renewed feeling of confidence.

“The result of our experiences over the past 12 months is that we have become a lot more cautious in terms of the way that we expand the business in future,” says David Roberts, “though we certainly haven’t lost our appetite!

“The opportunities now are quite unique with clients redefining their products in response to a changed economic climate and we are actually finding that 2009 is proving to be a very important year for us in terms of re-engineering our business. I believe we are becoming a much stronger organisation as a result of the challenges that we have had
to overcome.”

With a number of projects in Macau reaching completion over the past couple of years, the practice’s next big opening will of course be the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore – an incredibly fast project, both in terms of the design and construction.

This has been a hugely important project for Aedas, says Roberts: “We had an office in Singapore with a certain skill set and we brought in additional expertise from our Hong Kong and Macau offices to assist in the delivery. This has been marvellous for the Singapore office as it now has the capability to take on the largest of projects, and is now looking not just to Singapore for opportunities, but to the Middle East and other Asian markets.”

On 9 September, Aedas will also see the opening of the Dubai Metro, which gives the company a platform in the Middle East to carry out further transportation work. In fact one of the company’s biggest new projects is the West Kowloon Terminus for the Hong Kong High Speed Rail link to Mainland China, a new gateway statement for Hong Kong.

“We are particularly looking forward to the challenge of taking some of our experience in airports and applying them to the commercialisation of what is, frankly, a huge station with requirements that you simply do not find in a domestic rail service,”
explains Roberts.

There is much more in the pipeline, including a number of landmark projects in China, such as Centre 66 in Wuxi and the Boulevard Plaza in Dubai which forms the gateway buildings for the Burj Tower, currently the tallest tower in the world.

For the full article please see the RLI October 09 issue