URS wins battle for Scott Wilson as trumps CH2M with a £223m offer
ENGINEERING giant URS said yesterday it was offering 290p in cash for each Scott Wilson share, 18 per cent higher than Tuesday’s bid of 245p from Colorado-headquartered CH2M and 38 per cent above its original offer of 210p on Monday.
The move, valuing the company at approximately £223m, ends a bidding war for Basingstoke-based Scott Wilson, an engineering adviser whose projects include London’s Crossrail train line. CH2M, which yesterday withdrew its bid, offered £189m on 28 June, hours after Scott Wilson accepted a £161m bid from San Francisco-based URS.
URS’s new offer is also 233 per cent above Scott Wilson’s closing share price on 4 June, the last business day before it announced that it had received takeover approaches.
London-based Scott Wilson, which employs 5,500 people globally, said on Monday it had almost doubled its full-year pretax profit to £18m, but did not expect any growth in its UK business over the next year.
Its shares closed on Wednesday up 1.9 per cent at a 2-1/2 year high of 266p.
DC Advisory Partners and Citi are financial advisers to URS. Cooley LLP and Ashurst LLP are URS’s legal counsel. Greenhill & Co and Brewin Dolphin are advising Scott Wilson, with legal advice from Mayer Brown.
CH2M is Scott Wilson’s largest shareholder after buying just under 10m shares on Monday.