Arcadis ups Hyder offer on rival bid

22 August 2014

Arcadis has increased its bid to acquire Hyder Consulting following a rival offer from Japanese engineering consultant, Nippon Koei. Hyder’s Board has recommended the increased offer to its shareholders.

The end of July saw Arcadis originally offer UK£ 6.50 (US$ 11.00) per share for Hyder, valuing it UK£ 256 million (US$ 435 million). This was topped just over a week later when Nippon Koei came in with a UK£ 6.80 (US$ 11.56) per share offer. Arcadis has now come back to the table with a much-improved UK£ 7.30 (US$ 12.41) per share offer, which values Hyder at UK£ 288 million (US$ 489 million), a more than +12% increase on its original bid, or an additional UK£ 32 million (US$ 54 million).

As it made the recommendation to shareholders to accept the improved Arcadis offer, Hyder also announced that the Dutch company had acquired some 15.6% of its share capital at the offer prices. It added that all Hyder directors who hold shares in the company have agreed to sell to Arcadis at the improved offer price.

According to Hyder, the improved offer from Arcadis represents a +55.6% premium on its closing share price on July 30, the day before the original offer was announced.

Hyder is one of the world's longest established engineering consultancies, with a heritage that spans over 200 years. Headquartered in the UK, it operates in Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Germany and the UK with some 4,500 employees. Its revenues last year were UK£ 297 million (US$ 503 million).

Arcadis was founded in 1888 and is listed on the NYSE Euronext Amsterdam stock market with a market capitalisation of some € 1.74 billion (US$ 2.2 billion). Its revenues last year came to € 2.5 billion (US$ 3.2 billion).

Industry consolidation

The deal is the latest in a string of mergers among consultants this year which has seen Amec make an offer for Foster Wheeler, SNC-Lavalin bid for Kentz and Aecom swallow up both Hunt Construction and URS.