Acquisitions · Construction (water infrastructure)
Obayashi buys 90% of US water-plant builder MWH Constructors
- Buyer
- Obayashi (Tokyo)
- Target
- MWH Constructors (90%), Broomfield, Colorado
- Value
- About ¥19.4B (about $130M) for 90%
- Status
- Planned to close December 31, 2023; MWH announced its new owner on January 11, 2024.
- Date
- 2023-11-06
Obayashi agreed to buy 90% of MWH Constructors, a Colorado contractor that builds large water and wastewater treatment plants, from private equity firm Oaktree Capital, which had owned it since 2018. The price was about ¥19.4 billion. MWH had sales of about ¥71 billion and also owns Slayden Constructors and Methuen Construction.
Why it matters
US cities are spending heavily to replace aging water systems; the deal gave Obayashi a large share of that market alongside its US builders Webcor and Kraemer.
About MWH
MWH traces its roots to a water engineering group founded in 1820. Besides building treatment plants, it offers preconstruction planning, construction management and plant start-up services, and it also builds and fits out semiconductor factories. It earned an operating profit of only about ¥733 million on its sales, a thin margin.
What both sides said
Obayashi said it had been looking for a way into the US water infrastructure market, where growing cities and aging plants were expected to lift public spending. MWH president and chief executive Blair Lavoie said joining Obayashi would help it grow, and MWH said it would work with Obayashi's North American civil engineering group.
Sources
Kakehashi M&A News home
