Happy New Year!
It’s back to business as usual as 2020 kicks off to a flying start. It’s that time of year again when we reflect on the previous year and see what major changes took place in the transport and infrastructure sectors.
Let’s take a look at which companies made some big changes in 2019…
Avanti West Coast
FirstGroup and Trenitalia took over the Virgin Trains West Coast line and began operating the Avanti West Coast franchise in December.
Gatwick Airport
VINCI Airports completed the acquisition of a majority shareholding (50.01%) in London Gatwick airport. With this transaction, VINCI Airports becomes the world’s second-largest airport operator. Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) – retains the remaining 49.99% share.
FirstGroup
Announced it’s plans to sell off it’s UK bus division and its long-distance US coach arm Greyhound and in December they hired investment bank Rothschild to spearhead the potential sale of its remaining North American businesses.
CBRE
Have acquired Telford Homes in a £267m deal in October.
Powerlines Group
Engie reached an agreement to acquire Austrian railway electrification company Powerlines Group from private equity firm Glide Buy Out Partners. Powerlines’ UK subsidiary SPL Powerlines UK is a major OHLE supplier to Network Rail, and acquired Carillion’s stake of the Carillion Powerlines (CPL) joint venture company last year.
OVO Energy
Have agreed to acquire SSE’s household energy and related services business for £500 million. The sale is expected to complete later this month.
Galliford Try Partnerships
Galliford Try Partnerships acquired Yorkshire-based developer Strategic Team Group. The management team and staff at the firm will remain in place, and it will trade as Galliford Try Partnerships Yorkshire from 1 July 2019.
Severfield
In October Severfield acquired structural steelwork business Harry Peers for £18m to expand its business within nuclear and power generation market sectors.
WSP
Announced its acquisition of UK-based planning consultancy, Indigo Planning Limited, at the end of April. The acquisition comes as part of WSP’s goal to position itself as “the top planning consultancy in the UK”.
SYSTRA
In September, SYSTRA acquired the rail consultancy TSP Projects from British Steel. This purchase doubled SYSTRA’s presence in the UK and is now known as TSP Projects, a SYSTRA company.
Jacobs
Jacobs has acquired a 50% share in UK-based social value and wellbeing measurement specialists Simetrica, with the companies already working together to develop new best practices and solutions related to social value and wellbeing principles.
They have also acquired Wood Group’s Nuclear business for a value of £250 million.
ERM
In January ERM completed the acquisition of SustainAbility Ltd (SA). SA is a leading think tank and advisory firm.
HDR
Architectural and engineering consultancy firm HDR expanded its multidisciplinary building engineering services by acquiring UK engineering consultancy Hurley Palmer Flatt Group. Going forward, the firm will do business as HDR | Hurley Palmer Flatt Group.
Trinity Consultants
International environmental, health, and safety consulting firm, moved into the UK by acquiring Ecological Survey & Assessment Limited a 20-strong specialist team that was generating around £1.5m in revenue annually.
Genesee & Wyoming
Have announced the completion of its sale to affiliates of Brookfield Infrastructure and GIC in a transaction valued at approximately $8.4 billion including debt.
Bovis Homes
Bovis Homes has completed a £1.1bn deal to buy Galliford Try’s housing and regeneration businesses. The company has also announced it has applied to change its name to Vistry Group PLC.
WYG
WYG was bought in July up by US consulting conglomerate Tetra Tech for £43m.
Worley Parsons
Completed it’s purchase of Jacobs Energy, Chemicals and Resources Division (Jacobs ECR) in April.
E.ON
In September, E.ON took over the 76.8% stake in Innogy, which was previously held by RWE. Alongside this, 9.4% of shareholders agreed to sell their shares to E.ON and they have since purchased 3.8% on the stock exchange. This means that E.ON now hold 90% of Innogy shares.
Morrisroe
Concrete frame specialist Morrisroe has moved into the piling sector with acquisition of GSS Piling and Geostructural Solutions.
Ferrovial
Ferrovial has sold its Australian services subsidiary Broadspectrum. Australian service provider Ventia has acquired Broadspectrum in a deal worth £257M.
They have also been seeking to sell Amey and is rumoured to be considering offloading certain divisions to enable the sale of the rest of the business in 2020.
Teneo Consulting
Teneo has sold a majority stake to CVC Capital Partners, in a deal that reportedly values the consultancy and CEO advisory firm at more than $700m. CVC acquired a 49% stake from BC Partners, along with ownership shares that take its position to a slight majority.
GB Railfreight
The infrastructure equity investment arm of M&GPrudential has acquired GB Railfreight. Infracapital, on behalf of the Infracapital Partners III Fund, is bought GB Railfreight from EQT Infrastructure portfolio company Hector Rail Group for an undisclosed sum.
Canadian Pacific
Canadian Pacific announced 30th December that it has completed its acquisition of the Central Maine & Quebec Railway (CMQ), although the transaction remains subject to U.S. Surface Transportation Board approval.
Sweco
In May Sweco acquired MLM Group, a UK engineering consultancy with services primarily within buildings, transportation infrastructure and environment, predominately located in South East England.
RSK Group
RSK Group added to its portfolio by announcing the acquisition of Ecologia Environmental Solutions Ltd. The multidisciplinary site remediation specialist is the sixth acquisition for the rapidly expanding RSK group this financial year.
Arriva
DB were reported in October to be in exclusive talks with Carlyle Group to sell Arriva. This was suspended in November and DB have said Arriva could be floated if they cannot achieve an acceptable trade sale.
If you are looking to make any changes to your senior teams in 2020, get in touch to see how we can help.
