"Our decision to merge and rebrand at this time was deliberate," said Cowi North America president and CEO Steven Hunt. "We see strong growth in the demand for our specialist services combined with our clients looking for new ways to deliver their projects.

"Our clients entrust us to combine our very specialised engineering expertise with project leadership to handle ever larger and more complex projects for them. We see this as an optimal time to combine our North American specialist businesses and lever the global scale of Cowi in the bridge, tunnel and marine market."

Steven Hunt will remain president and CEO of Cowi North America. The company announced that new appointments for the tunnel business were expected shortly.