PE Deals

OEP builds UK presence with engineering consultancy Amey

Buckthorn Partners has partnered with OEP in the deal for the firm, which also provides infra services.

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  • OEP bought the company from Spanish multinational company Ferrovial
  • Amey employs over 11,000 people across 200 UK locations
  • The company’s core markets are transport infrastructure and government buildings

One Equity Partners (OEP) announced on Tuesday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Amey from Ferrovial for £400 million ($442 million; €445 million). Amey is an engineering consultancy and infrastructure services provider that employs over 11,000 people across 200 locations in the UK.

Amey, headquartered in London, is a contractor to the UK government and public sector. The company’s core markets are transport and infrastructure and government buildings. It offers services covering engineering and systems design, data science, analytics and digitalisation. The company had £1.3 billion in revenue and £43 million in EBITDA in 2021, according to Ferrovial.

“Amey is a well-regarded, long-standing player in the critical infrastructure design and management space in the UK, and we are very excited about the enhanced opportunities for growth Amey will have as an independent company,” said Ante Kusurin, principal at OEP. “We believe that the UK’s decarbonisation efforts and net zero strategy will also accelerate growth by creating new opportunities for sustainable infrastructure.”

OEP is a private equity firm headquartered in New York. OEP was spun out of JP Morgan in 2015. It invests across the healthcare, industrial, technology, and technological services sectors and looks for companies with revenues of $100 million to $800 million.

Buckthorn Partners partnered with OEP in the deal. Buckthorn is a London-based private equity firm that invests in industrial businesses that provide products and services that support growth and integration of renewable energy.

Ferrovial is a Madrid-based publicly traded multinational covering design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of transport infrastructure and urban services.

The deal follows OEP’s recent deal for the core operating assets of German company Muehlhan, as reported by PE Hub Europe.