黑洞社区

Dutch engineering giant Arcadis is likely to make a counter-bid in its battle with Japanese consultant Nippon Koei to acquire UK engineer Hyder, an informed industry source has told 黑洞社区.

Nippon Koei agreed a 拢268m takeover deal with Hyder鈥檚 board on 8 August, trumping a 拢256m deal Arcadis struck with the UK firm the prior week.

An informed source told 黑洞社区 this week that Arcadis was now likely to up its offer.

鈥淎rcadis is known for these M&A approaches being long in the making and a counter-offer would seem a strong prospect,鈥� the source said.

Christopher Bamberry, analyst at Peel Hunt, agreed Arcadis was likely to counter-bid: 鈥淭here are more opportunities for Arcadis in terms of cost and revenue synergies and they鈥檝e got a stronger balance sheet than Nippon Koei.

鈥淣ippon Koei鈥檚 offer was less than 5% more than Arcadis鈥� and the rule of thumb for counter-bids is to go 10% higher.鈥�

Nippon Koei鈥檚 offer was dealt a blow last week after one of Japan鈥檚 biggest credit rating agencies, Rating and Investment Information (R&II), put its triple-B credit rating at risk of a potential downgrade if the deal went ahead, due to the 鈥渉eavy financial burden鈥� it would place on it.

Bamberry said R&II鈥檚 credit rating warning could dissuade Nippon Koei from getting drawn into a bidding war. 鈥淲ith their credit rating under threat you鈥檇 suspect that might be their best offer,鈥� he said.

However another analyst, who preferred not to be named, said Nippon Koei鈥檚 offer could win out, as it was nearly 12 times the firm鈥檚 profit, when measured as EBITDA [check]: 鈥淚t looks like a generous price, you would have thought the Japanese would get it.鈥�

Nippon Koei generated revenues of 拢421m last year, making it significantly smaller than 拢2bn-turnover Arcadis.

Nippon Koei has pledged to run 拢297m-turnover Hyder as a standalone division with no job cuts or office closures, whereas Arcadis has said its potential takeover of Hyder would result in annual cost savings of 拢15m, with some overhead and job cuts.