Ricardo makes a second acquisition in Australia

/ July 8, 2019/ Australia, Infrastructures, M&As (small under $50m in revenues), Ricardo, UK

Ricardo is acting fast on growing its presence in Australia. After its June 2019 acquisition of Transport Engineering, an Australian rail engineering firm, Ricardo is to acquire PLC Consulting.

PLC Consulting is headquartered in Melbourne and provides environment planning and infrastructure consulting firm. The company is specialized in master planning, business cases, procurement, design, construction, and operations. It has 21 employees. PLC Consulting will become part of Ricardo’s Energy & Environment business.

Ricardo is paying AUD 9.6m for PLC.

While we understand Ricardo’s need for diversification, away from UK automotive, we feel uncomfortable about this acquisition. It is small, brings limited synergies with Transport Engineering, and overall positions Ricardo in an industry, infrastructure engineering, where large vendors already operate. We would rather have Ricardo focus on consolidating its emerging sectors.