The Manchester-based developer and asset manager has created three businesses – Unify, Unify Energy, and CubicWorks – to overhaul the way it delivers facilities management, fit-out and utilities services to clients.
Unify will provide a range of integrated facilities management solutions, including mechanical and electrical repairs and maintenance, energy, cleaning and specialist cleaning, while Unify Energy will provide energy as a managed service to help occupiers across Bruntwood’s property portfolio to cut costs.
Meanwhile, CubicWorks will offer construction, refurbishment and fit-out services alongside mechanical and electrical design and installation.
Chris Oglesby, chief executive of Bruntwood, said: “We’re excited about these three disruptive ventures and their potential to shake-up the provision of FM and contracting services across the UK.
“Organisations of all shapes and sizes expect more from their property than ever before and we know what it takes to deliver not just excellent spaces, but excellent experiences and services within them.
“So, for us, Unify and CubicWorks are very much a part of our ongoing evolution as a group.”
Bruntwood’s chief operating officer Richard Burgess will assume the role of chief executive of Unify. The new business unit employs 350 people, 250 of which have transferred to Bruntwood from its existing FM suppliers.
Unify has secured 30 contracts so far, entering its first full financial year with an £8m order book as it continues to target occupiers of commercial office and public sector buildings, national retailers and industrial and logistics occupiers.
Unify Energy will offer energy as a managed service and sub-metering to Bruntwood customers and other building landlords and property agents. Its chief executive is Sarah Martin, currently director of utilities at Bruntwood.
The aim is to offer an alternative model to the single-meter system typical to multi-tenanted buildings, where landlords and agents have to split energy bills with occupiers based on square footage. Unify Energy, as a fully licensed supplier, can provide metered energy bills directly to each occupier instead, “giving customers and landlords a more accurate and compliant managed energy service”, Bruntwood said.
Unify Energy will also explore opportunities on behalf of its clients for on-site energy generation, in line with Bruntwood’s goal of generating 30% of its energy on site by 2030.
Meanwhile, CubicWorks will be headed up by three Bruntwood directors – Shan Khambata, Mark Spavin, and Mark Wright.
The business will aim to “rip up the rulebook” and adopt a consultative and partnership-led approach to project management. “It is not your average construction refurbishment and fit-out company…more like a construction partner,” according to Bruntwood.
The firm has been appointed by developer Bywater Properties to refurbish its £2m Northstar office scheme in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. It will also become a supplier to Bruntwood Works and Bruntwood SciTech.
More than 50 employees from Bruntwood’s project contracting team have transferred into CubicWorks.
