Has CH2M HILL found the winning formula to top UK transport?

US-based infrastructure giant CH2M HILL completed the purchase of UK engineering consultant Halcrow in November 2011. Eighteen months on, Andrew Forster caught up with James Rowntree, CH2M HILL’s managing director – infrastructure (Europe), to hear about the firm’s drive to win a bigger slice of the UK ort markettransp

Andrew Forster

19 April 2013

James Rowntree

In 2011 Halcrow followed other well-known UK transport planning and engineering consultancies Colin Buchanan, Gifford and Scott Wilson and passed into overseas ownership. US-based global infrastructure giant CH2M HILL purchased Halcrow for £124m, the 6,000-strong workforce of the UK firm boosting the Colorado company’s headcount to nearly 30,000.

It was a deal that made sense for both firms. Halcrow, like the UK’s civil engineering consultancy sector as a whole, was...