Waterman Group announced that it has entered into a conditional agreement to acquire Boreham, the consultancy specialising in transport planning, development control and transport studies, for a maximum consideration of £9.64m. 

£4.94 million is due at completion, with a further £4.7m payable conditional on satisfying certain performance targets and conditions. Completion of the acquisition is conditional upon Waterman shareholder approval at an Extraordinary General Meeting expected to be held on 20 April 2007.

Boreham, founded in 1984, principally works within private sector organisations on major commercial, leisure, retail and residential development schemes. It also provides support and advice on strategic transport schemes, traffic management, infrastructure design and public realm schemes to local government and public bodies. 

Boreham operates from offices in the UK and Ireland and has its head office in Brentwood, Essex. It’s revenue for the year to 31 March 2006 was £9.9m, with pre-tax profit of £2.2m

According to a statement released by the company, Waterman’s strategic objective is to strengthen its position as one of the UK’s leading multi- disciplinary engineering and environmental consultancies, and the acquisition of Boreham provides an opportunity for the Waterman Group to strengthen its capability in the transport planning and traffic engineering sector. 

Commenting on the acquisition, Bob Campbell, Managing Director said: "The key features of Waterman Group’s strategy are to diversify further the range of services offered to clients, to cross sell its range of services throughout its client base and to expand its regional areas of operations. Boreham scores highly in each of these areas and we are delighted to welcome this high quality, specialist transport and traffic consultancy team to the Waterman Group.”