Mr. Mason: AMEC is a provider of services and engineering solutions to the international infrastructure, manufacturing and process industries. The way we see ourselves is creating value for clients through the application of our technology. More and more we are working in an alliance and partnership basis with our clients, moving away from the traditional relationship and traditional forms of contract. We are very much a design-led business. One of the attractions of AGRA was that out of 6,500 employees it had 3,500 associated with the design process. In AGRA we see a leading North American professional services group, specialising in engineering and environmental activities, and it also has an advanced technology solutions business. AGRA brings a number of key industries to us, including oil and gas in North America, fine chemicals, consumer products, mining and forest products. So AGRA brought good design, systems skills and substantially increased the new AMEC in that regard. It also provided us with a first-class capability in North America, and thereby a springboard for growth in the existing AMEC skill sets ' while enhancing international reach in respect of our global clients. More and more major clients, particularly in oil and gas and pharmaceuticals, are looking for global rather than local solutions. We saw, in short, a highly complementary fit between AMEC and AGRA in terms of disciplines, operations, geography and, not least, in culture. In fact, if one reads about the strategic and cultural shift taking place in AGRA ' long before AMEC came on the scene ' and then reads AMEC's script for the way forward, there's a remarkable fit in terms of our views on life and the future. So there was a mutual focus on the professional service end of the industry rather than traditional, basic contracting. The latter, I see more and more as the commodity part of the delivery to clients, where the sole distinction is price. The distinguishing features of professional services are front-end consulting, detailed design and ' at the back end ' maintenance and operation. The bit in the middle, the actual construction itself, becomes the least valuable part of the whole process. It's a big chunk of the cost for the client, of course ' but more difficult to add value compared to the design. Yet if you control the design and the engineering of a project ' then the delivery process can also be rewarding for both constructor and the client.
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