LONDON: CRH is Britain's "most admired" materials and merchant company according to a survey of peers by Management Today magazine.
CRH narrowly pipped Travis Perkins to the top spot, with Kingspan, Saint Gobain and Wolseley following on behind. The survey asks company bosses for their views on the 10 largest listed companies in their sector, and scores each out of 10 in nine criteria, including quality of management, financial soundness and use of corporate assets. Balfour Beatty is the "most admired" heavy construction company, with Costain was second followed by Kier, Keller and Galliford Try. Bottom of the list, perhaps unsurprisingly, was ROK, although it was rated the best in the sector for quality of marketing. Among house builders, Berkeley came out top, followed by Persimmon and Bellway. Abbey and McInerney trailed a distant ninth and tenth. Each sector was also given an overall ranking, with building materials and merchants scoring 538.7 out of 900, heavy construction 494.5 and house builders 486.2. This represents an improvement for house builders and merchants on last year, which scored 453.1 and 516.5 respectively, but a fall in esteem for heavy contractors, which last year scored an aggregate 518.0. Best construction-related performer in 2010 was generator hire company Aggreko, which came 9th in the overall list of most admired companies. Unilever was first overall, followed by Serco, Shell and Sky. Full lists are at http://www.bmac.managementtoday.com/BMAC_2010.htm
