Seeing synergy in market focus and client approach, engineer and program manager Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., Pasadena, Calif., acquired Philadelphia architect KlingStubbins on Nov. 1. The deal boosts the parent's design capabilities in life-science and mission-critical facilities and adds 500 U.S. and Asian employees. It also highlights the still sizzling merger-and-acquisition market for industry firms.
KlingStubbins is at No. 111 on ENR's Top 500 Design Firms list, with $98 million in 2010 revenue. Jacobs ranks third on that list, with $4.7 billion in revenue. Jacobs also is at No. 10 on the Top 400 Contractors list. Terms were not disclosed. "While KlingStubbins is large by architectural standards, this is a small, bolt-on acquisition," says Avram Fisher, BMO Capital Markets analyst. "We are not concerned that the typically weak free-cash-flow metrics of the architecture business will negatively affect [Jacobs'] typically strong cash-flow generation."