Sydney engineering firm Craig & Rhodes acquired by Colliers

A 100-year-old Sydney-based civil engineering company has been snapped up by US firm Colliers Engineering & Design (CED), which plans to use the fresh purchase to target promising development opportunities across New South Wales.

While the acquisition price of Craig & Rhodes is undisclosed, the buy-out is expected to strengthen CED’s ability to meet healthy development demand in Western Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.

Founded in 1923, Craig & Rhodes has 120 professionals based in NSW, and has assisted with the development of 20,000 residential lots across Sydney with an associated construction value of around $2 billion.

According to the 2022 NSW Population Projections, the state will need to house an additional 85,000 people every year over the next two decades.

This means a total of 904,000 new homes will be needed over the next 20 years to keep up with the growing population – equivalent to 45,200 new homes per year, including 28,500 in greater Sydney and 16,700 in regional NSW.  

Craig & Rhodes CEO Andrew Halmarick will lead CED’s NSW operations post-acquisition.

“We are extremely excited to be partnering with a globally respected firm and international platform that will accelerate our growth allow us to successfully deliver some the the largest and most complex projects,” Halmarick said.

Colliers Engineering & Design is a subsidiary of Toronto, Canada-based real estate investor Colliers, and offers multi-discipline engineering, design and consulting services to public and private sector clients. CED employs more than 2,000 people globally.

Its parent company has operations in 63 countries, generating an annual revenue of $USD4.5 billion ($6.7 billion) and holding USD$92 billion ($138 billion) in assets under management.

Only a week ago, CED acquired Michigan-based Rogvoy Architects for an undisclosed sum, marking its third office in the Midwestern state.

CED said the latest acquisition of Craig & Rhodes will broaden the company’s impact in Australia, having already helped provide homes for around 200,000 people across the nation.

“More of our clients are looking to integrate traditional agency and adjacent services, wanting a single partner who can value or transact a site and then de-risk through supporting infrastructure planning, engineering, and approval,” CED managing director Brent Thomas said.

“As the engineering, planning and urban design professions become increasingly collaborative with other areas of expertise throughout the project lifecycle, we know integrated insights can provide much better project outcomes for our clients.”

Under Collier’s partnership model, all existing shareholders continue to hold an ownership stake in the CED business.

“Colliers’ approach continues to differentiate the firm’s abilty to attract best-in-class partners,” Thomas said.

“We look forward to further growth across our national engineering and design platform through this model as we contiune to access more national growth areas.”