Following early beginnings in the Far East, Venus brought together a full construction team within the UK, which were fully employed on Venus Phase I homes and our mixed-use commercial & residential development in London.
Venus Trading's close links with China enabled us to source building materials from China (always ensuring they met strict British Standards) enabling us to minimise build cost and maximise revenue whilst not compromising quality and finish. Venus established a branch in Zhongshan city in Guangdong Province, China called Silver River Trading as the buying arm. This enabled the successful completion of the said developments.
The next growth phase has seen our sister group in Singapore (Venus Group - Singapore) establish a joint venture company, Sinowest Construction Group with Mace Group; Sinowest will concentrate on larger infrastructure projects in the UK and Europe, together with our Chinese partners.
Sinowest's aim is to act as a long term partner for Government and Public Authorities seeking to develop and modernise their infrastructure. The division's business model is to originate these projects, integrate all the financial and technical elements required for the delivery and management both of the internal investment and subsequent operational phases. Risk profile for each project is managed individually within contractual arrangements such that it does not bear any construction risk.
Backed by the financial and technical strengths of our combined companies, our construction arm will be able to totally focus on the needs of our clients within the UK and Europe. This allows us to understand the needs of our clients and continually improve the service we offer by delivering within time and financial constraints whilst always respecting the value for money factor. By doing this, our clients see us as the first choice for a partner, today and tomorrow.
Funding:
When we look to the Funding of large-scale, global projects we approach global financial institutions such as HSBC, Challenger, CITIC and China Development Bank. Our largest achievement within the group was to undertake a Joint Venture Cooperation MOU with the China Shanghai (Group) Corporation for Foreign Economic & Technological Cooperation SFECO in May 2007.
By venturing into the UK and Europe construction industry, SFECO will be maintaining its world-wide construction prowess that has been built over the years. In partnership, we will spearhead the launch of SFECO within this region and guide it through the initially unfamiliar stages of local procurement of contracts all the way to post construction tax efficiency.
In 2009, we were pleased to announce SFECO had merged with Shanghai Construction Group which enabled Venus Group to consider large scale public infrastructure projects with SCG's experience and capabilities.
Recent joint meetings in Shanghai between Venus Group and SCG/SFECO and Shanghai Municipal Government teams have been very successful for worldwide project negotiations with the aid Venus Capital division project financing model.
On-going major development proposals
On major developments proposals stated below, Venus Group Singapore is in discussions with Asian sovereign entities as our development partners. This coupled with our construction advantage via our Chinese partners will produce the expected return on investment on complex projects.
On major projects, we have joint-ventured with MACE as our construction delivery partner under our Sinowest JV.
1. Eco Business Park in the Royal Docks.
Venus did not succeed through the short-listing process for the Royal Albert Docks, which is unfortunate as our development would have generated much needed employment in the area and would have helped the London Borough of Newham to add core skills and training for its people.
East London will greatly benefit from this unique development which is themed as 'Living Green Laboratory'
Venus Group has spent substantial resources in developing this proposal and have presented this to Sir Robin Wales, Mayor of Newham. His comments resulted in a revision in the design. This scheme will generate enormous employment opportunities. We will be submitting our Expression of Interest for this development next month.
Brochure Download
2. Bromley South Station development proposal (Site J)
Venus is reconsidering involvement in this project due to various unexpected issues.
This development proposal forms part of the £1bn London Borough of Bromley Regeneration Programme and Venus Group and partners are very keen to work with the local authority to achieve this vision along with site G within their Area Action Plan.
