Motts expands in USA and joins Balfour Beatty/ Vinci HS2 bid

Mott Macdonald announced this week that it had bought out parts of a long-standing joint venture business in the US, Hatch Mott MacDonald (HMM). Mott MacDonald takes over HMM’s US business and its North America-wide pipelines business. Canada-based Hatch acquires the rest of HMM’s Canada business. The deal sees Mott add 2,000 staff and 62 offices to its growing North America business.

Keith Howells, Mott MacDonald (pictured) chairman, said: “Renewing roads, bridges, airports, railways and water systems is vital to keeping North America economically competitive but realising large-scale infrastructure projects requires innovative approaches to finance, procurement and engineering.

“With our additional staff and offices we are in a stronger position than ever before to work in partnership with our clients to help them address these issues and provide real, everyday improvements to the lives of North Americans.”

Mott MacDonald said its North American clients now span the transportation, water, wastewater, oil and gas, power, pipelines, tunnels, buildings, stadiums, education, health and international aid sectors.

Meanwhile in the UK, a Mott MacDonald Systra joint venture has been picked by the Balfour Beatty / Vinci joint venture bidding for some of the £11.8bn High Speed 2 civils packages.

The JV was last month shortlisted for four of the five most valuable works packages available on HS2, with a combined total value of up to £5.4bn.

This is the latest tie following  the selection of Jacobs and Ingerop-Rendel has design partner for the Align JV, featuring Bouygues, Sir Robert McAlpine and VolkerFitzpatrick.

In March, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff was named as partner for the Laing O’Rourke / Murphy / FCC Construcción JV.Other design partners confirmed for HS2 bidding teams include Aecom, working with the Morgan Sindall / Bam Nuttall / Ferrovial ‘Fusion’ JV; Arup, which is on board with the Costain / Skanska / Strabag consortium; and Ineco, which is partnering with Dragados / Galliford Try / Hochtief.