The Canadian engineering firm, WSP Global Inc. has reached an agreement to acquire UK based RPS Group plc, currently valued at approximately £625m.
Half the financing for the deal will be from WSP directly, with the other half coming from three existing WSP shareholders; GIC Pte. Ltd, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), and a subsidiary of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments).
Founded in 1970, RPS has approximately 5,000 employees operating across a range of sectors, providing specialist services to government and private sector clients with a focus on front-end consulting. RPS has been widely recognized for its strong sustainability agenda, having been ranked number one in the UK for climate change and energy consulting by the Environment Analysis for 2019/2020, a top 200 environmental firm by Engineering News-Record in 2021 and recognized in 2021 as one of the first “carbon champions” by the Institution of Civil Engineers.
“We are pleased to announce the proposed acquisition of RPS as it will enable us to rapidly deliver on our Global Strategic Action Plan and create value for all our stakeholders,” commented Alexandre L’Heureux, President and Chief Executive Officer of WSP. “RPS is a perfect fit as it adds depth to our current platform and is highly complementary, in terms of geographies and sectors, to our recently announced agreement to acquire the Environmental and Infrastructure (E&I) business of the John Wood Group plc.
“When completed, our recently announced transactions will bring our workforce to approximately 70,000, with approximately 23,000 environmental experts across the globe. We are proud that we are building a strong ESG leader with significant capabilities in water and energy and contributing significantly towards the transition to a greener and low-carbon world,” he added.
