DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Focus Group Holding Inc. (Focus), a KRG Capital Partners Fund III (KRG) portfolio company and a leading provider of engineering services in Western Canada to the energy and infrastructure end markets, has entered into an arrangement agreement under which it will be acquired by WSP Global Inc. (WSP; TSX:WSP), subject to the satisfaction of certain customary closing conditions. WSP is one of the world's leading professional services firms, working with governments, businesses, architects and planners and providing integrated solutions across many disciplines. The transaction is expected to close in April of 2014.
The sale of Focus delivers a successful return for KRG’s limited partner investors, and builds on KRG’s track record of executing its buy-and-build investment approach. Over the life of the investment, KRG partnered with Focus management to complete nine add-on acquisitions, resulting in significant value creation for all shareholders.
“KRG has been highly supportive of our ambitious growth plans at Focus, both organically and through acquisitions. I am grateful for the strategic partnership they provided in helping our management team build Focus into an industry leader in our target markets across Western Canada,” remarked Focus President and CEO David Ackert.
Charlie Gwirtsman, Managing Director at KRG, said, “David Ackert has provided great leadership through one of the most meaningful growth periods in Focus’s history and the business is extremely well positioned in the promising Western Canadian energy and infrastructure markets as a result. We wish David and our management partners from Focus all the best as they embark on their next chapter of growth with WSP.”
Harris Williams & Co. served as financial advisor to Focus, and Stikeman Elliott LLP acted as legal counsel to Focus in the transaction.
About Focus: Focus is a leading multi-disciplinary engineering and consulting firm serving oil, gas and civil markets throughout Western Canada. Focus offers a comprehensive range of high quality, sophisticated engineering and consulting services that are best-in-class across divisions. The company has concentrated on creating a highly integrated and diversified engineering service solution, which enables seamless execution and an ability to service the full spectrum of customer’s engineering needs across the oil and gas value chain and civil markets. The Focus platform is composed of four divisions: facilities engineering, pipeline, geomatics, and civil engineering. More information on Focus is available at www.focus.ca.
About KRG: Founded in 1996, KRG is a Denver-based private equity firm with $4.3 billion of capital either deployed or available for future investment, which includes approximately $1 billion deployed since inception on behalf of equity co-investors. KRG specializes in acquiring majority interests in middle-market companies and growing them into significantly larger enterprises through the combination of internal growth and selective strategic add-on acquisitions. KRG Capital seeks investment opportunities where we can partner with existing management teams that are committed to building a best-in-class industry leading companies. Since inception, KRG has invested in 45 platform companies and has completed 149 add-on acquisitions for those platforms. More information on KRG is available at www.krgcapital.com.
