Hyder Consulting

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Hyder Consulting plc
Type Public limited company
Industry Design, Engineering, Environmental, Planning & Management consultancy
Founded As Freeman Fox, 1857
Headquarters London
United Kingdom
50 Offices Worldwide
Key people Ivor Catto, Chief Executive
Russell Down, Finance Director
Revenue £277.3m (year ended 31 March 2012)
Employees 3,800
Website Hyder Consulting

Hyder Consulting is a multi-national advisory and design consultancy with particular specialisation in the transport, property, utilities and environmental sectors. The firm employs approximately 4,200 people across the UK, Europe, Germany, Middle East, Asia and Australia and has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since October 2002. The name Hyder is the Welsh word for "confidence".[1]

History

Through the 20th century, Freeman Fox & Partners was a civil engineering firm in the field of bridges and highways. Founded by Sir Charles Fox in partnership with his son Sir Charles Douglas Fox in 1860, Sir Charles Fox and Sons later became Douglas Fox & Partners. Their firm was later joined by Sir Ralph Freeman (who had worked for the firm since 1901) and Sir Gilbert Roberts, and became Freeman, Fox and Partners in 1938, later Acer Freeman Fox.[2]

The firm was responsible for the design of projects such as the Victoria Falls Bridge (1905), the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932), the Forth Road Bridge (1964), the Severn Bridge (1966), the Bosphorus Bridge (1973), the Humber Bridge (1981), and the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge (1988). Other notable projects included the Parkes radio telescope (1961), the Erskine Bridge,[3] the 46m Algonquin Radio Observatory (1965), and Melbourne's West Gate Bridge (1978), which collapsed in 1970 killing 35 workers.

Over the same period John Taylor & Sons was a civil engineering firm in water and wastewater engineering with projects such as the Shanghai water supply project and major water and sewerage projects in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) and Tehran.

The two firms merged in 1987 to form Acer Consultants. Over the next few years, several smaller specialist firms were incorporated to form a worldwide infrastructure and civil engineering consultancy.

The company and another consultant Wallace Evans Ltd were acquired by Welsh Water in 1993 and renamed Hyder Consulting in 1996. When Hyder Consulting was bought by Western Power Distribution, the senior management of Hyder Consulting instigated a management buy-out, completed in January 2001. The firm then listed on the London Stock Exchange in October 2002.

The company's current market sectors include utilities (energy, water and resources), property, transport, environment, resources, energy and technology. Its services include building and infrastructure, environment, geosciences, transport, structures, water, management and property.

Acquisitions

Since 2002, Hyder has acquired a number of companies. These include:

  • ACLA Limited - Landscape Architecture, Urban Design and Master Planning, Middle East and East Asia
  • Ashact - Environmental and Process Engineering Consultancy, UK
  • Bettridge Turner & Partners - Transportation, Environmental and Land Development Consultants, UK
  • Cresswell Associates - Ecologists, UK
  • Marcus Hodges Environmental - Environmental and Ecology Consultants, UK
  • RPA Quantity Surveyors - Construction, Cost and Project management, UK
  • Acerplan - Engineering Consultants, Germany
  • SEIB Ingenieur-Consult - Engineering Consultants, Germany
  • Voigt Ingenieure - Engineering Consultants, Germany
  • Crescent PSS Pty Ltd - Project Management and Advisory Consultancy, Australia
  • Holford Associates - Architectural and Interior design, Dubai
  • Sd+D, Strategy, Economics and Operations, Australia
  • Ingenieur Consult, Building Services, Germany
  • ESR Technology, Engineering, Safety and Risk Consultants, UK and Middle East
  • SAK, Infrastructure Consultants, Saudi Arabia
  • GW Engineers, Resources Consultant, Australia
  • BCH Engineering Consultants, Australia

Notable projects

Recent projects of the company include Taiwan High Speed Rail, the Melbourne CityLink and EastLink (Melbourne) tollways, Hong Kong Greening Master Plan, Ski Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, Ballarat East Maintenance Facility, [4] the Cairo Wastewater Project, M25 DBFO, Port Botany Expansion Project, Museum of Islamic Art, MGM Grand Casino, Crossrail, O2 World, London Bridge Station (JV) and Berlin Brandenburg Airport.

Recent project wins include Network Rail Project Support Services Framework, UK, Jeddah Engineering Consultancy Framework, Final Phase of the Greening Master Plan, Hong Kong, Oxley to Kempsey Pacific Highway and the General Engineering Contract C2.

2009 redundancies

The Group's Interim Management Statement issued on 12 February 2009 stated: "Following a review of our operations by the new Executive team, we are restructuring in order to streamline and better align our service offerings with the markets and sectors in which we operate. In addition, we have responded to market conditions by reducing our headcount and overhead expenditure. As a result of these initiatives, headcount will reduce by 8% and one-off, exceptional costs of approximately £8m will be incurred in the second half year, leading to anticipated annualised cost savings of some £4m. The Board will remain vigilant in managing the Group's operations through the current global downturn."[5]

References

  1. ↑ "BBC - News article". BBC News. 2001-01-10. Retrieved 2008-05-08. 
  2. ↑ Scott 1993, p. 519.
  3. ↑ http://www.erskinebridge.co.uk/construction/
  4. ↑ Official web site "Burj Dubai - Official Web site". Retrieved 2008-05-11. 
  5. ↑ "Hyder Consulting". Ww1.investorrelations.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-11-26. 

External links


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