The Dutch engineering and design consultant Arcadis plans to phase out a series of legacy brands, including EC Harris and Hyder Consulting, its best-known name in the Middle East.
Arcadis acquired Hyder in a US$483.3 million deal last year, which has boosted its presence in the Middle East. It employs 1,800 people in the region.
Hyder had been present in the Middle East for 110 years and has worked on many of the UAE’s flagship projects, including Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, Atlantis Hotel and Emirates Towers, as well as the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain and The Galleria mall in Abu Dhabi.
Elsewhere in the region, the company has a joint venture in Saudi Arabia that provides consultancy services and training to Jeddah municipality staff, and it is designing Jeddah’s new public transport network. It is also working on the Doha Metro.
Neil McArthur, the chief executive of Arcadis, said that the company had “aligned our global and regional operating models and eased knowledge transfer” since completing the acquisition of both Hyder and the architectural firm Callison last year.
Callison has been merged with Arcadis’ architectural practice RTKL to form a division known as CallisonRTKL.
“We are already seeing this approach bear fruit through applying our global capabilities to win work on mega projects such as the Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia and the protection of New York following Hurricane Sandy,” Mr McArthur added.
Wael Allan, the Arcadis Middle East chief executive and a member of the Arcadis board, said: “In the Middle East, we will see our expert teams from EC Harris and Hyder Consulting come together and go to market as one powerful, integrated Arcadis brand.”
Arcadis employs 28,000 people in 70 countries worldwide. The company in July announced that revenue had increased by 41 per cent in the first six months of this year to €1.7 billion (Dh7.06bn), mainly as a result of its acquisitions and currency fluctuations, although 2 per cent of its growth was organic. Net profit fell 16 per cent to €38.3m, which it blamed on tough market conditions in Brazil and North America.
Arcadis has said it expects savings of £15m (Dh85.5m) by the end of next year as a result of the Hyder merger.
mfahy@thenational.ae
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