Did we say Australia was going to look very good to overseas investors with the incendiary chaos occurring elsewhere in the world?
The latest piece of news to back that up is the acquisition by the US based Colliers of Ayesa, the Spanish company that bought engineering firm ADP just 12 months ago.
Colliers’ chief executive officer Australia, Malcom Tyson, said the move was part of a strategy to expand the offerings the consultancy could make to its large government, institutional and private clients. Engineering was paramount, but so too was urban planning and a raft of specialist services such as acoustics and surveying, along with “below ground” work required for major infrastructure.
Meanwhile. Laurent Deleu, co-founder of ADP Consulting with Jason Afford, said the company had grown about 26 per cent in the past 12 months since the Ayesa deal in staff (about 60), as well as turnover. He said there had been an uptick in retrofit work, most notably in office buildings converted to student accommodation.
According to Tyson, the new acquisition is part of the global company’s strategy of significant investment in engineering over the past four years, not only in Australia, but in Europe and North America as well.
“The business has grown quite rapidly in engineering, landscape design and urban planning, as well as adjacent services to support our current client base.”
Twelve months ago, it bought Ethos Urban, an Australian urban planning company with about 160 staff.
The logic behind these acquisitions was to allow “more comprehensive and integrated services” to clients, many of whom are large, Tyson said.
“A lot of work is around infrastructure and development – the need to help with the big picture and need for scale and long term vision.” It includes civil engineering and specific skills such as acoustics and surveying, as well as the need to ensure “correct execution” in relation to cost pressures.
It seems the company these days does everything other than development. “We don’t compete with our clients,” Tyson said.
And among the multidisciplinary skills on offer, sustainability remained “very important”, he said.
“For a whole lot of reasons – social obligations and even the way you operate from the top down.”
Were more acquisitions on the way?
“We’re always looking,” Tyson said.
The outlook is strong, says ADP
According to Laurent Deleu, the acquisition will not significantly affect day to day activities, with the company continuing to report to the Spanish headquarters of Ayesa in Seville and pursuing the infrastructure work that’s come with the new owners.
Over the past 12 months, activity has ramped up in data centres and aviation, but also in ADP’s core area of building work.
“Alex’s team [director Alex Sear] is busier than ever,” Deleu said, with the team’s specialist building skills in retrofit leading in Australia and also exported “across the world”.
“We’re doing a lot of that in the UK and in Australia.
“Finally, we’re starting to see a push from clients across the sector.”
The company was doing retrofitting of office buildings in Adelaide to student accommodation, and also in Brisbane, where conversions included aged care.
He said tax incentives were assisting these get over the line.
“The whole sentiment is changing.”
In infrastructure, the company was submitting proposals in the Middle East and Europe for tunnels, rail and desalination plants.
Asked how it felt to see the company sold, he said it felt “exciting but strange”.
“You go and build a business and grow it to 360 people – but it was the right time [to sell].”
Deleu is Belgian born and came to Australia in the 90’s acquiring an electrical engineering qualification and then starting a small engineering business with Jason Afford.
The Spanish team had been “great”, he said.
The market likes the Colliers expansion
It looks like the market is in favour of Colliers’ expansionary activity. According to Tip Bank, a buy rating from William Blair analyst Stephen Sheldon, said Colliers appeared “conservatively positioned in its brokerage assumptions, which could allow for meaningful upside if commercial real estate transaction volumes rebound more strongly than management’s base case”.
“In another report released on February 12, Scotiabank also maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a $185.00 price target,” the publication said.
A Colliers statement at the time said, the Ayesa acquisition added more than 3000 staff to make a total of about 14,000 staff globally; about 2000 in Australia.
It allowed the addition of “multidisciplinary engineering design, site supervision, and project management consultancy services to major public and private sector clients in the transportation, water, buildings and cities, and energy end markets.”