GHD and Conestoga‐Rovers & Associates (CRA) have joined together to create a global leader in engineering, environmental consulting, architecture, and project management services. The result is a company that is more than 8500 strong, with 4000 in North America alone. The merger includes all of CRA and its family of companies, including Inspec-Sol and eSolutions. The companies have officially merged, with all ongoing employee shareholders in CRA becoming shareholders of GHD. This unique feature of the merger makes it one of the largest private stock transactions in the engineering and environmental consulting industry.
Ian Shepherd, GHD’s CEO, says, “This is one of the largest true mergers to have occurred in our industry. We are building on the strengths of two leading companies to create a global team of more than 8500 people across five continents. We are adding significant growth and scale to our business, while retaining the advantages of our private, employee-ownership business model for creating client value.”
Ed Roberts, CRA’s President, says, “CRA’s goal has been to leverage our outstanding environmental, geotechnical and forensic engineering capabilities and broaden our business in the municipal infrastructure markets. With GHD we’re able to do this, while expanding our global footprint, particularly in Australia and Asia, to better serve our multinational clients.”
By combining resources, melding business practices and pooling equity interests, the two companies become mutually dependent on each other for the creation of value over time. CRA and GHD will do this together by leveraging a deeper and more diverse talent pool, across a stronger geographic footprint.
Richard Wankmuller, GHD’s General Manager – Americas comments, “Our emphasis will be to integrate these two great companies while ensuring we maintain the responsiveness and service levels our clients expect from us. Our merger continues our growth trajectory in North America and around the world. With our combined business we now operate across a network of 200+ offices with 130 located in North America.”
The two companies will work together on a progressive integration program while focusing on continuity of service and maintaining a high level of responsiveness to clients. The combined business will be known as GHD.
