Civil engineering firm Project Management has bought a UK architects firm in a deal valued by the industry at about €6 million. Barry O'Halloranreports.
Project Management has just signed off on the purchase of Devereux Architects Ltd, a mid-sized practice that employs more than 60 people. Neither side revealed the price paid, but the industry rule of thumb for deals of this nature is that practices sell for a figure slightly less than their turnover. On that basis, the purchase will have set Project Management back somewhere in the region of €6 million.
Accounts filed by Devereux with the UK companies' registrar show it turned over £4.5 million (€6.5 million) in the 12 months ended March 31st, 2006.
The south London-based firm has a good reputation in healthcare and public sector projects.
The developments it is working on range in scale from six figures to €300 million. One of the projects it was involved in was the design of a 36-bed facility for Knockbracken Hospital, Belfast, valued at about €12 million. In its last financial year, it made a profit before tax of £153,000.
Commenting on the deal, Project Management chief executive Pat McGrath stressed that the Irish firm was looking for "reputation rather than size".
"They're an excellent firm with an excellent track record and an excellent cultural fit."
The deal is likely to be the first of several as the firm has hired a mergers and acquisitions specialist from PricewaterhouseCoopers and a lawyer to work in house on buying companies.
Project Management is managing the Lansdowne Road redevelopment, but it is most active in the pharmaceutical and high-tech sectors, where it has worked with most of the big multi-national players to have invested in the Republic. It recently won two contracts to design and build specialised laboratories in Biopolis, the biotechnology-focused research and development campus in Singapore.
