an interview with sari gedeon | an impressive mix At Area Operations level, we are harnessing synergies by involving C&B in delivering services for current and future projects, providing our AOs with the added capabilities of C&B uniquely branded services. At the Group level, synergies are sought through the integration of services with other Group members. Noteworthy to highlight that among our Group the services of C&B intersect with all members and inter-group collaboration is expected to increase as a result of C&B blanket coverage. Public-private partnerships (PPPs or P3s) are a growing feature of the global construction landscape encompassing rehabilitation or construction of new assets. How do you see C&B adding value to the Group in this respect? Public–private partnership (PPP) describes a government service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies. This is becoming increasingly attractive as a delivery scheme for major infrastructure project. Currie and Brown is one of the leading international providers of technical and related advisory services to a diverse and evolving PPP infrastructure market and are involved in projects with a combined value of over £35 billion. Currie & Brown work for both the private and public sectors, across a wide range of PPP challenges, including technical and commercial remits and lead advisor where their expertise covers strategic planning and preparation of business cases; project scoping and assessing affordability; technical outputs and advice; payment mechanism; service levels; and advise on asset lifecycle across all aspects of transactions. Currie & Brown were entrusted PPP assignments with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transportation in Mexico and also advised on PPP projects in Chile, Guatemala and Peru. Also they have wide-ranging projects ongoing across Europe, including the M25 ring-road in Madrid and municipal stadiums in France. In the UK they have an extensive portfolio of defense, education, health and infrastructure projects dating from the inception of PPP to the present, and are a recognized industry leader in the market. Obviously there is a great potential if such capability is invested within and across the various members of our Group in their respective fields of services and their geographic spread. How do you see this integration growing and how do you see it benefitting other firms in the Group? The services provided by C&B make it possible for all members of the Group to expand the scope of their service delivery each will benefit from the services and expertise of C&B. On integration within the Group, it looks very promising and over the few months following the tie-up, there were on-going meetings and discussions between C&B executives and those from the Group’s other firms and the outcome so far has been very positive. The intention is to maintain the momentum and keep the snowball growing, consolidating and vying to pool resources on shared work assignments. 39