Civil engineering firm open to more Irish acquisitions

WHITE Young Green (WYG), the civil engineering consultancy group with its headquarters in Leeds, is open to making further acquisitions in the Irish market — having significantly expanded its operations here over the past year.

In its interim management statement yesterday, the company said that trading since the start of this year has been good. It added that its three acquisitions in 2007 — including last month’s €19.5 million purchase of Dublin-based civil and structural engineering consultancy PH McCarthy — “are performing in line with internal expectations”. The statement reiterated that WYG sees “significant opportunities to grow the business going forward and the acquisition pipeline remains strong”.

“We remain open-minded with regard to acquisitions in Britain, Ireland and internationally. We have spent money in Ireland in recent times and still look at the country as one with potential further opportunity,” said WYG finance director Bob Hartley.

The group also bought the Athlone-based civil and structural engineering consultancy Malachi Cullen and Partners for 1.6m and project management firm, the Nolan Ryan Partnership for 14m over the past year. The group’s Irish operations spread across Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Athlone and Kilkenny. It also has two offices in the North in Belfast and Derry.