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Tetra Tech looks to have hijacked WSP’s takeover of UK consulting engineer RPS.
Last month, the board of RPS approved a £625.9M takeover bid by WSP, pending shareholder agreement in the deal.
However, Tetra Tech has now submitted its own takeover bid of £636M.
RPS board has subsequently withdrawn its recommendation that shareholders back the WSP offer and is instead asking shareholders to support a the slightly larger takeover bid from Tetra Tech.
Planned shareholder meetings to ratify the WSP takeover have now been postponed.
RPS non-executive chairman Ken Lever said: “The board of RPS is pleased to recommend Tetra Tech’s offer, which provides our shareholders with even greater value for their shares. Our combination with Tetra Tech will provide attractive opportunities and long-term benefits to our associates and global clients.”
RPS chief executive John Douglas added: “Joining Tetra Tech represents a highly attractive combination of two leading companies in the industry for our clients and provides an ideal opportunity for our people to realise RPS’ goals to meaningfully contribute to the world’s most challenging problems in energy transformation and water management around the world.
“I am very excited about the future of our combined company and the benefits for our people and clients. By joining together, Tetra Tech provides RPS and its employees with a strong and culturally aligned platform that creates a pre-eminent consulting and engineering firm addressing climate change and all its effects.”
Tetra Tech chairman and chief executive Dan Batrack said “The RPS Group advances our long-term strategy to enhance our position as the premier global high-end consulting and engineering firm focused on water, environment, sustainable infrastructure, and energy transformation.
“We welcome the RPS Group’s associates to join us and collectively leverage our long-term client relationships and project experience. As a global consultancy with a commitment to high-end solutions, we can offer our expanded team of associates even greater professional opportunities.”
RPS is a professional services firm with around 5,000 employees including consultants, designers, planners, engineers, and technical specialists. It generated revenue of £560M last year and made a pre-tax profit of £12.4M.
A WSP spokesperson said the firm would not be commenting at this time.
Last week, WSP completed the £1.5bn acquisition of Wood’s infrastructure business.
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