UK contractor Miller Civil Engineering Services (MCES) has been acquired by UK construction brands group Morgan Sindall plc at a cost of $28M.
Miller Civil Engineering includes Miller Tunnelling, one of the UK’s premier contractors for the underground construction industry. The group has worked on a number of infrastructure projects in the UK including the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, having an experienced construction and in-house technical design team.
MCES managing director Graham Grundon, who lead the team that prepared the sale, told the UK press recently: "We’re very excited by the new ownership. We were a strong player in the Miller Group and Morgan Sindall is the ideal match." He stressed that senior management would stay in place.
MCES is also made up of Miller Water and Miller Civils and, with Miller Tunnelling, employs a 650-strong workforce based in Rugby, UK. No redundancies are planned.
Of the sale of MCES, chief executive of the Miller Group Keith Miller said: "We have come out of civils because it didn’t have any synergy with the other areas we work in; civils is getting more speculative."
Morgan Sindall has bought the Miller Civils division as part of its plan to create a construction group with a turnover of $1.4bn. John Morgan, Morgan Sindall chairman, said: "We have been talking for a few months and civil engineering was an area we wanted to get into. The returns aren’t massive but the risks are getting less and less because a lot of the work is partnered."
