ANNUAL REVIEW 2019

3

Contents

Annual Performance 4-5Financial / KPI headlines 6-7

The 5 divisions Buildings 8 Infrastructure 9Compliance 10Environment 11Business Support 12-13

MLM & Sweco - Coming Together 14-15MLM Academy 16Environmental Management System 17CSR and MLM Foundation 17Technology and Innovation 18MLM Recognition Award 19

Shaping a better built and natural environment to live, work, learn and play

By joining Sweco we are now able to realise our national potential. We are continuing to expand our regional expertise and strong London presence, and securing commissions not only across Europe but also in the Far East. We can now establish our place in the Sweco family by enhancing our UK skills and creating new opportunities throughout the UK, Europe and beyond.

The investment in our people and continued promise to our clients underlines MLM’s broad strength.

Coming together with Sweco will make us an even more exciting and fulfilling place to work as well as a compelling choice for our clients.

2019 is an historic year in the evolution of MLM. By joining Sweco we are now part of the largest and most recognised construction consultancy in Europe.

This presents opportunities to develop our career aspirations to the full, venture into new markets and provide our clients with a broader range of services. Creating the conditions for this momentous event wouldn’t have happened without your dedication and support over the years, which is a privilege to have been part of and for which I am grateful.

Thank you for making 2019 a successful year and I look forward to an exciting and rewarding future together.

Neil Cooper Chief Executive

ChairmanSteve Oliver

Contents

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Page 8

Annual performance

£38.5mREVENUE IN THE 18/19

FINANCIAL YEAR

We achieved £38.5m revenue in the 18/19 financial year and in the context of a tough market we’ve done remarkably well. I’m grateful for the commitment and dedication of our people in helping to hold us steady, with some areas outperforming their plans.

Becoming part of Sweco diverted attention to a certain degree. However, the second half of 2019 showed renewed focus. The forward order book is looking promising for 2020, with some exciting projects and interesting work.

The Enterprise Strategy – winning the right work with the right client, has been evident across MLM and is a feature that is already being introduced to Sweco’s UK operations. This deliberate, planned action to work with clients who value our services and in markets we want to work in helps create long-lasting relationships. This is good for our people, for projects and for long term business success.

We’re a “One To Watch” Best Company and the autumn employee survey indicates good satisfaction levels. There was a strong message telling us to communicate well at all levels through the organisation, an area where we took our eye off the ball during the change to divisions and the acquisition.

Neil Cooper

2019 performance has been characterised by uncertain trading conditions and a reduced output in the construction sector.

Performance

4

Our Academy supported a comprehensive training programme, including: • The successful roll out of Office 365 and the rapid take

up of Teams, as an effective tool to do business, share information and work together

• The third cohort of the Management Development Programme

• Support to structured professional training programmes

Our position as a responsible consultancy is evident in attaining ISO 14001 for our environmental management system. This accreditation has focused attention and action to reduce our carbon footprint, energy use, the amount of resources we use and drive up the level of recycling across all offices. Our ISO 17020 accreditation for Building Control demonstrates that we lead the sector in our role as an Approved Inspector. We convey transparency over impartiality and independence along with clear procedures

to ensure we deploy the right level of competence to the projects we consult on.

We’ve benefitted from stable systems over the year. This is down to good forward planning by the IT team and investment that’s taken place over the past five years.

Eldon House was expanded and refitted, providing a modern collaborative environment to welcome the transfer of the Fluid team in May, and work is apace to accommodate the Sweco Farringdon team into Eldon House. This is a great example of taking advantage of joint office space opportunities sooner than anticipated.

Since coming together with Sweco we’ve been getting to know each other and whilst we don’t officially become ‘One Sweco’ until September 2020, joint project opportunities are being realised. Work sharing has been taking place across MLM, which is encouraging for the future. With such positive collaboration, MLM will have a bright future as part of the Sweco family.

The autumn employee survey indicates good satisfaction levels, with a strong message telling us to communicate well.

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Finance It’s been an interesting year for our Finance team. The combination of Due Diligence with Sweco and early stages of integrating our systems, combined with a backdrop of maintaining a successful £40m turnover business, during difficult external trading conditions, has kept us on our toes. Key figures

• Bids averaging £12.5m per month

• Won work averaging £3.4m per month

• Invoicing at £3.3m per month

Including record months of bids (Aug 19 £18.1m) and record signings (Jul 19 £5.2m).

£18.1 MILLION

RECORD MONTHS OF BIDS (AUG 19)

c£1MILLIONINCREASE

IN BIDDING ACTIVITY

Elliot Wells

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Financial / KPI

• c£1m per month increase in bidding activity

• Hit rate reduced from 1:3.7 to 1:4.1• At least 50% of the team are in

structured training including AAT and APA, with three members of the team qualifying in the last 12 months

• Implementation of a more robust and fit for purpose Approved Supplier system.

Headlines

In the process of sharing what we do with our new colleagues at Sweco we have unearthed some interesting facts:

Did you know?

We process 1,500 sales invoices per month

MAINTAINING A SUCCESSFUL £40 MILLION TURNOVER DURING DIFFICULT

EXTERNAL TRADING CONDITIONS

£40MILLION

2,700

employee expenses claims each month

We process (and pay)

£ ££ £1,300

purchase invoices per month

76,000 hours per month

We book

14,500 current jobs on our books at the moment

We have

800 new jobs per month

We open JAN

JULY

FEB

AUG

MAR

SEPT

APR

OCT

MAY

NOV

JUNE

DEC

££

1,400 transactions on our bank statements each month

We haveWe process

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The 5 Divisions

2019 has continued to deliver excellent results, both from a societal and business perspective. Our rail business has shown growth in excess of 160% from the previous year.

2019 saw the launch of the Buildings division comprising of Structures, Building Services, Buildings Infrastructure and Fire service lines. It also saw the amalgamation of Fluid Structures with our London Structures team.

Despite the challenging market conditions, our Buildings division has had a very successful year; we have seen significant growth in our international projects, particularly in Mission Critical work. Our continued engagement with global delivery partners in this area has cemented our position as a multi-disciplinary trusted adviser. Due to this, we have set up a steering group to drive our presence further within this sector.

Our enterprise strategy defined housing association frameworks as a crucial entry point and by focusing on this, we have been appointed to the top six frameworks of G15 group of housing associations.

Our Building Services and Structures teams have enjoyed continued success in the regeneration and residential market in Greater London, delivered via our London and regional teams.

Our Façade Engineering team is expanding rapidly, which has given us an edge in what we can offer our clients in the residential sector.

Our Fire Engineering team is also growing to deliver the rising number of opportunities.

We are working on a number of secondary and SEN school projects in the education arena. Our capability to deliver timely information and value engineered proposals are the key to our success here.

A significant area of growth, identified in our strategy, is our strong digital influence. Our input in the Mission Critical sector, in particular, has provided us with the credibility of offering BIM services on large scale projects acting as the main coordinator, pulling together information from all contributors.

Next year we will see the coming together of MLM Group and Sweco UK. For our Buildings division, this is an exciting opportunity to build on the combined strength of both businesses and further augment ourmarket position.

BuildingsRob Seller

Despite the challenging market conditions, the division has had a very successful year.

With over £600bn and 700 projects in the National Infrastructure Pipeline, infrastructure is a vast subject and whilst our construction sector output during 2019 has been challenging, there is still plenty to do.

The modern challenges we face together to solve the housing crisis, protect against climate change and connect our cities requires infrastructure as a bedrock and our work in this area has never been more important.

The work our infrastructure teams carry out makes the railway faster and safer, improves the highways, helps protect against climate change and provides the road and drainage solutions to our much needed housing developments. In essence, we are contributing to the needs of the many and we are proud of the role we play in society.

With that in mind, 2019 has continued to deliver excellent results, both from a societal and business perspective. Our rail business has shown exponential growth in excess of 160% from the previous year and our Infrastructure teams have continued to deliver and buck the trend despite the challenging economic climate.

A notable strategic achievement was our success on the Highways England Framework (Lot 1 – South West and Midlands). This has already resulted in a fantastic project (A46) and the opportunity to bring in our new colleagues at Sweco, where together we have realised far more than we would have otherwise been able to achieve.

The rail sector also entered the new five year control period in April (known as CP6), with a £39.7bn planned spend over this time period, of which £9.0bn is targeted at maintenance and £18.5bn at renewals.

At the end of one control period and the start of another we have previously experienced a dip in workload, but not this time, meaning our services are valued and much sought after. Our Rail team has more experience than ever and is ideally placed to contribute towards the available opportunities over the next five years.

InfrastructureLee Bowker

Photo?

Highways England Framework - Lot 1 - South West and MidlandsCambridge Science Park

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The 5 Divisions

Heightened environmental awareness and the growing emphasis on environmental, social and governance criteria points to a strong future for our Environment division.

We are an established multidisciplinary environmental consultancy offering a broad range of services across multiple sectors.

Over the years, we have developed a very wide client base across a variety of areas. Some of these include energy, waste management, residential, industrial and healthcare, amongst others. We have been appointed for over 300 different projects in the last year.

As an Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) EIA Quality Mark registered company, we have, over the last year, strengthened our offering by providing EIA services to clients.

To maintain the highest standard of support to our projects, we’ve invested in new software and training for many of the services and operate the latest equipment for our various surveys.

We have a proven track record of delivering on projects of varying size and difficulty. From contaminated land assessment, Preliminary Ecological Assessment to coordinating Environment Impact Assessments for garden villages or satisfying

stringent contaminated land conditions for redevelopment.

Assisting colleagues in our Buildings, Infrastructure and Compliance divisions to support their clients’ projects is second nature for our Environment division. By bringing our additional skills we mitigate risks and find cost-effective solutions in the built and natural environment. Our work in the Rail sector (site investigation and geotechnics, ecology and asbestos) demonstrates the added value we bring.

EnvironmentDarren Gill

CompliancePaul Eggleton

Our Compliance division has continued to thrive in an uncertain market and political environment. At the start of 2019 we had three clear objectives: ideal clients, Ireland growth and efficient performance.

By focusing our efforts on the ideal clients we have gained clarity on what we want to do and who we want to work with. This has proved exciting for our teams, who have made the decisions and taken ownership of the client experience.

Putting the client at the centre has resulted in an increased average project fee. We’ve taken on fewer projects, so our time can be better utilised and we offer an improved client experience as a result.

Ireland has benefited on our collaborative approach through targeted bidding, joint opportunities with Sweco and raised profitability. This has placed the team in a strong position moving forward.

Effective support of technical delivery is key to meeting our clients’ needs. We’ve brought together our team administrators to work as one, bringing consistency, quality and capacity to smooth our workflows. At the same time we have introduced

a new bid strategy which is managed in a focused way, applying the appropriate amount of effort to the project enquiry.

Training continues at good pace with high success on the Charter programme, management development and technical CPD activities. As the future of regulatory landscape unfolds, we have an obligation to society to retain the right capabilities to remain successful.

We look forward to our generation Y teams who have been heavily engaged in helping us shape the Compliance division of the future where they will be the leaders.

By focusing our efforts on the ideal clients we have gained clarity on what we want to do and who we want to work with.

IJF Rehabilitation and Fitness Centre, Newmarket Lake Lothing Third Crossing

We’ve invested in new software and training for many of the services and operate the latest equipment for our various surveys.

We are already starting to work alongside our Sweco colleagues in a number of areas, such as contaminated land and acoustics. The national coverage and increased strength in numbers has enhanced our technical ability to support bids for larger projects, frameworks and the strategic aims of the combined company.

We are looking forward to coming together as ‘One Sweco’ in 2020.

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The 5 Divisions

It’s been a year of two parts with the Sweco merger being announced in early May.

All our teams have been very active in their respective fields, both before and after the announcement. The emphasis is now moving towards planning for the integration next year, when the two businesses will start to work together as a single organisation.

There is a lot of preparatory work now being done to align the businesses and support functions to meet the needs of the new divisional groups.

We look forward to the implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that will replace our current platform, TIME. This will be a major task for 2020.

Business SupportRobert Eglington

This year we changed the structure of the IT team to focus on customer service. We now have a dedicated triage of second and third line technical support that has improved our customer support experience.

GDPR and cyber security considerations mean we are always looking to leverage our investments on Microsoft Office 365 and its associated technologies.

One of the more interesting projects we have been testing with a small team of engineers is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) within a demanding CAD environment. Initial reviews from both a commercial and technical perspective looks promising and we will look to develop this technology during 2020.

IT Mark Holt

The Legal team has been through many changes and we’re pleased to have finally returned to full capacity with a stronger team structure.

The core business remains contract review, but involvement in other areas has increased. Introducing an experienced team leader has had a positive impact on the overall performance of the team, and we’ve established better collaboration between the credit control and contracts teams.

A large part of the team are currently engaged in further training to enhance their knowledge and effectiveness.

We’ve started to establish strong links with our Sweco colleagues in Leeds as we work towards becoming Sweco in 2020.

LegalIain Thom

The sheer volume of transactions alongside the Sweco merger has kept the team busy this year. We’re keeping a sharp eye on all aspects of the finances from sales invoices, WIP, getting paid to overheads and obtaining the best deals from our supply chain. With our year end changing to December, we are gearing up for a busy Christmas period.

Many of the team have started, continued or finished their studies. Two team members have achieved their qualifications and our Accounts Payable Manager received APA recognition for their influence within the industry.

AccountsElliot Wells

Our HR team have recruited 98 employees across the Group including two new team members - a Trainee HR Administrator and HR Assistant, the latter to replace a team member who left after five years with the company.

In July we introduced a new electronic self-certification for sickness absence, via My MLM, which has significantly speeded up the process.

Our Best Companies survey results revealed that we are a “one to watch”, and the team are working closely with Sweco on integration activities.

HRTracey Boxall

Our Marketing team have made some notable achievements this year.

In April we ran a successful internal communications campaign for the launch of Office 365, a new online collaborative tool to help us work together more effectively. This was closely followed by the launch of our internal news platform, the MLM Hub, which has been greatly received.

We played a key role in the communications campaign for the announcement of Sweco acquiring MLM Group in May. As part of the integration, we will be working closely with our Sweco colleagues on the rebrand project where we will become Sweco.

MarketingKaty Pointer

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MLM & Sweco - Coming Together

Synergies

Local Presence, National Capability

In May 2019, we were acquired by Sweco, Europe’s leading engineering, environment and design consultancy that combines a multi-disciplinary approach with access to international expertise across Northern Europe to deliver sustainable solutions.

Expertise and commitment to clients are at the core of

both businesses...

A combination ofspecialist expertise across a wide range of divisions.

This is a great fit in terms of office footprint and to develop a wider regional presence. Expertise and commitment to clients are at the core of both businesses.

MLM is acquired by Sweco

Buildings

Energy & Environment17%

Transportation25%

Water & Asset Management19%

Compliance11%

28%

16,000 employees

Sweco is Europe’s leading consultancy

A great strategic fit...

2019

This is the natural next step for both companies and will bring positive results for our clients and employees.

Together we will plan and design the sustainable communities and cities of the future.

28% Buildings

Energy & Environment

Transportation

Water & Asset Management

Compliance

17%

25%

19%

11%

MAYAPR JUNE JULY

xx

Coming together with Sweco creates an opportunity for us to grow and develop a stronger multi-disciplinary offering to clients.

Bringing us closer to our clients

Our 2020 journey to become Sweco

CollaborativeTeamwork

Great Comms

Coming Together

Getting Involved

New Systems

Integration Plan

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2019 2020

1716

People ISO

Environmental Management System Michelle Wormald

The next stage in our journey will be the merging of MLM Group and Sweco UK ISO 14001:2015 systems, bringing together our key projects. This integration will focus on the development of the Sustainability Framework and Social Value footprint for the business moving forward.

The new print document fleet was installed in November 2017 and MLM Group colour printing continues to decrease. Mono printing is down by 30.08% and colour by 56.83%. These year on year reductions have resulted in further changes to our colour print arrangements across the fleet to match the

decreased volumes and save up to £8,000 per annum. This has also contributed to a reduction in waste volumes and carbon dioxide emissions.

We have enhanced our environmental messaging through internal newsletter articles, ‘Environmental Matters’, which have proven a great success and received positive feedback. We also use social media and our MLM Hub to shine a light on current issues, solutions and what we do to combat our environmental impacts.

This year we successfully attained certification under ISO 14001:2015 across the whole Group. This is a momentous achievement for all involved. Our ISO team captured the vast amount of legal and environmental compliance data required for all 11 offices.

Here are some highlights

21 students have completed work experience, four of whom took paid summer placements and will be joining us soon. We’ve had a presence at careers events in Ipswich and Ashford and supported the Chelmsford Skills festival and the South Essex Constitution Training Academies.

Our Structures team assisted with the food bank project, refurbishing a former sports block to create their new headquarters and the Ashford transport team helped with the Wye Undercroft project.

We’ve raised funds through our office dress-downs and charity days and taken part in charity cycling events including the London to Brighton ride and the Anderson Group Charity Bike Ride.

CSRMartin Liddell

We have fulfilled our Corporate Social Responsibility aspirations in a wide variety of ways this year.

MLM FoundationSteve Oliver

We continued our commitment to the MLM Foundation in 2019, working in partnership with UK Community Foundations to make a difference to our local communities.

For our initial allocation of funds we provided support for three local projects with Ipswich Community Media, Southampton Women’s Aid and Straight Talking Peer Media, helping community projects to make a difference.

In addition to the £24,000 donated by MLM partners, across MLM we have raised around £4,000 from office fundraising activities - and all that hard work and enthusiasm has been match-funded by MLM Group pound for pound.

Our clients have also been enthusiastic about the initiative and provided donations totalling £3,000. We’re also delighted to have supplied pro-bono services to the value of £830 helping towards local causes.

An incredible total of around £32,000 is a fantastic way to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the fund and it’s been rewarding to see our work acknowledged as an inspirational model by other national organisations.

Thank you all very much for your support.

The MLM Academy gives our people the skills and knowledge to achieve outstanding performance.

Katie Smith

The Academy supported the rollout of Office 365 with a learning style survey to understand how we like to learn and our preferred learning platforms.

With the internet and videos being high on the list we utilised our eLearning platform with video content for all to view and access easily. This was also supported by workshops run internally for maximising collaboration, sharing ideas and creating learning communities across the Group. We continue to embed this with phase two and three in the pipeline.

With more technical standards available we have been able to offer level 3 and level 6 apprenticeships to Civil Engineering and Structural trainees. We plan to develop into Building Control, Building Services and Transportation. In August we ran an Apprenticeship month providing interactive webinars with guest speakers from universities, colleges and the ICE to help explain and understand

apprenticeships in more detail: how they work, what is expected and how they will be supported within MLM Group.

We are now in our fourth cohort for the Management Development Programme. With the alumni growing we are empowering and developing new skills within the company to expand and grow. One of the highlights of the programme is the final presentation where the delegates present back to line managers about their 10 month journey, which is always very positive and inspiring to be part of.

Coaching and mentoring has been a strong focus for 2019. Workshops have been very popular to better understand the differences, improve conversations and encourage us to bring out the best in people.

We continue to offer strong graduate training through our ICE, RICS and CABE chartership training.

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Highly Commended: Jack Madder-Copping

Highly Commended: Jack Dubbey

Winner: Paul Curran

Recognition AwardIn memory of Steve Adams

Jack has made a huge impact in the short time he has been at MLM. He is the dedicated communication arm for IT users in the business, making a real difference to the IT Support Team.

Jack will go above and beyond to solve IT issues, which has had a really positive effect on the end user experience and improved workflows in the IT Team. He implemented a user feedback form through which we have received glowing reviews. There have also been hugely positive comments regarding his performance from other sites around the business he’s visited. Jack embodies our values with his can-do attitude and friendly demeanour. He remains calm and positive, which is demonstrated through his delivery and the way he communicates and collaborates with others.

Jack’s commitment to excellence has set him apart, with many clients and colleagues alike electing rather to wait for Jack to become available in order that he personally deal with their project, issue or query. He has personally invested many hours into tutoring graduates (and others) within the Fire Engineering team in London.

He held his head high and continued to uphold strong client relationships, attending to their needs and delivering an excellent service. All this, whilst meeting his targets and studying towards his MSc in Fire Engineering on a part-time basis.

Paul is a very good team player and strong manager. As CAD team leader he has become an integral part of the management team. He has developed BIM techniques that can be used across the firm.

Paul is great to work with due to his infectious passion and attention to detail. He portrays a strong collaborative approach to communicating with clients and colleagues. He is also very eager to guide more junior

employees about how to grow and reach their full potential. Notably, the guidance he’s given to new trainee graduate technician is exemplary.

Paul is methodical in his approach and always willing to go beyond the call of duty, often taking work home in the evenings and at weekends to ensure that deadlines are reached and to a high standard.

Fire, London IT, Ipswich

Structures, Chelmsford

Technology and Innovation Recognition Award

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This year, we have maintained a key focus on technology, ensuring that the capabilities we developed during 2018 have been integrated into everyday working practises and shared with clients.

With Office 365 and the introduction of Teams, we have successfully improved how our teams communicate on projects. Key features such as project messaging, one-to-one video conferencing and sharing information in a live environment has resulted in reduced travel time and closer working.

We successfully achieved BSI recertification for our BIM process. Our BIM offering was extended into the Information Management role where we are now analysing 2.6million points of data on a weekly basis to confirm compliance for use by our clients Facilities Management team. Our BIM solutions are enabling MLM to be at the forefront of the construction industry’s technological revolution.

We’re also using innovative technologies to develop advanced design solutions, which enable us to test several structural and design ideas at the early stages of a project. This includes 3D printing of façade and structural solutions.

We have continued to develop our skills in both the virtual and augmented reality environments, creating workflows to deliver an immersive experience, both at the early stages of a project and on site. Our growing expertise in this area means we can produce dynamic design presentations and improve information flow to site level.

The MLM team collaborated with the Sweco One Alliance team, showcasing the latest technology projects at Trinity Park, Ipswich, demonstrating the improvements and integration of drones, 3D printers, Virtual Reality headsets, parametric design and Artificial Intelligence within the design, construct and maintain environment.

Innovation and Technology Matt Sealby and Chris Neeves

The award is in celebration and recognition of Steve Adams, MLM Partner from 1994, who sadly passed away in August 2015. This is to honour Steve and the significant contribution he made to MLM. The award focuses on our Vision and Values and recognising people who go the extra mile to demonstrate them. It is a fitting legacy to Steve, who was an outstanding role model to us all.

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