John Taylor & Sons - Hyder Consulting

Hyder Consulting: 1996 to the future
significant brands in the engineering world, and
clients and potential clients did not necessarily
equate Hyder with their heritage and experience.
Furthermore, being owned by a major UK
regional utility made a number of other UK
utility businesses reluctant to give work to a
competitor’s subsidiary.
That ownership came to an end in November
2000 when Hyder plc, burdened with the debt
used to fund its expansion strategy, was bought
by the US-owned utility company, Western Power
Distribution (WPD). It became clear from an early
stage that WPD’s interest lay in the utility
operations, enabling Tim Wade and fellow senior
directors to put together a management buy-out
package.
In January 2001, Hyder Consulting regained
its independence, owned by its directors and
senior management. Pressure came from certain
quarters to rename the business once again,
perhaps adopting something based on the
famous names of the past. However, the changes
of the previous 10 to 15 years and the effort
invested in establishing the Hyder Consulting
name in the global market persuaded the
directors to stick with what they had.
The years in which the consulting business
had been a small part of the Welsh Water and
then Hyder plc organisations had seen
considerable changes in the market for
professional consulting services. The market
crashes in Asia had left a number of the
company’s traditional markets weak.
Consolidation and stock market listings of
consulting engineers had started to take a hold
in the UK and there was increasing price
competition, not only domestically but from
emerging economies such as India and China. A
number of years of losses needed to be reversed.
Difficult decisions had to be taken. Among
these was the company’s withdrawal from the
Indian market and a substantial slimming back of
its operations in South East Asia.
Elsewhere, however, the company continued
to take strides in the areas it had targeted for
growth and expansion. After the completion of
Emirates Towers, Hyder Consulting was
increasingly recognised for its capability in
designing tall buildings. In Australia, the company
was appointed to design the Citigate Centre in
Sydney and Latitude at World Square.
The latter was the first major high-rise
building to be designed and built in steel
after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the
United States. Recent examples in
Australia include the Ernst & Young
Centre in Sydney and The Wave, a
residential tower on the Gold Coast that
received a 2006 International Emporis
Skyscraper Award.
Another major challenge faced by the
business at this time was the continuing
rapid changes in the way that technical
consulting services were procured. Many
of these changes put the emphasis on
consultants working as part of integrated
teams of technical service providers. Ever
more frequently, the consultant’s client is
the construction contractor or another
third party in the supply chain, rather than
the end client.
Indicative of the number of new
contract forms that have emerged in the
past ten years, Hyder was the structural
designer in the UK Government’s first
ever schools Private Finance Initiative
(PFI) project for Colfox School in Dorset.
The company also designed the UK
Highways Agency’s first Early Contractor
Involvement (ECI) project, the A500 in Stoke-on-
Trent, a complex urban highway widening project
on which it worked with Edmund Nuttall.
While steady progress was made in the
company turnaround, a central part of its longerterm
strategy was to expand, in particular,
technical areas through the acquisition of smaller,
specialised consultancies. Flotation on the Stock
Market was seen as the obvious way to raise the
money but, at the time of the buy-out, was
probably seen as three to four years ahead.
In 2002, it was resolved to proceed with a
flotation by way of a reverse takeover of a listed
cash shed. This allowed a quickening in the pace
of change away from traditional engineering
design towards more broadly based consultancy
embracing a component of non-engineering
services bringing increased value to clients. It
gave the company access to capital markets and
hence to acquisitions which further facilitate the
changing face of the company. A number of
Intelligent transport and environmental
services are amongst Hyder Consulting’s
fastest growing areas of work.
Simon Hamilton-Eddy, born 1945
Having joined Wallace Evans 1992,
Simon became finance director in
1993 after Welsh Water acquired
Acer. He was also responsible for the
commercial function for a number
of years and was instrumental in
bringing about the business
mindset and structure that is so
essential to the consultancy market
of today. Along with Tim Wade he
led the management buy-out of
Hyder Consulting in 2001.
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