Transfield chases $300m in contracts

Adelaide Advertiser
Tuesday 19/10/2010 Page: 31

Transfield Services is bidding for about $300 million worth of contracts in South Australia, and is determined to raise its public profile. The diversified services provider employs about 1700 people in SA. However, it has generally flown under the radar. In a bid to rectify this, and to tap into the state's burgeoning economy, Transfield Services has set up its first state manager position in the nation here, which has been filled by general manager Adam Machon. The company is also consolidating its office workforce to a new site on South Tce, which managing director Peter Goode believes will help it attract staff.

Dr Goode himself is an SA expat, with a long career in oil and gas with companies such as Santos and Schlumberger. He is keen to see the brain drain from SA reversed, and says the company already has a number of staff who have returned because of the opportunities now available in SA. Transfield Services, which has operations globally in countries including Chile, Dubai, Qatar and the US, operates eight major contracts in SA already.

It has contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars with the Australian Rail Track Corporation, does work for rail company Genesee and Wyoming Australia, maintenance and capital works for Santos in the Cooper Basin, and coating work on the Collins class submarines for ASC. It also owns wind farm assets such as the Starfish Hill wind farm near Cape Jervois through the Transfield Services Infrastructure Fund, and has three other sites it might develop in the future.

Dr Goode says it is no mistake that SA was chosen as the site for the company to start raising its profile. He said he was shocked that the company was not better known here. 'We feel there's a lot of opportunity in this state, particularly around mining, but also around renewable energy", Dr Goode said. "We would like to be on a path across our business where we have recurring double-digit growth. "Once we get through the current economic environment we can get back to... sustained double digit growth and we'd like to see that in South Australia as well. "We do see South Australia as a particularly good destination for investment bias at the moment because of the opportunities that the state presents".

Dr Goode could not go into details about the contracts the company was bidding for, but said the company would be hiring "substantial" numbers of new employees depending on how successful these bids were. The company would be looking for people across the professions and trades and also had an indigenous employment program, Dr Goode said. It was reported this month that Transfield Services had already locked in $1.1 billion worth of contracts in the first quarter of the financial year, and it had contracted more than 80% of its forecast revenues.