Perhaps the most eye-catching thing about last week’s news that Multiplex is being bought was that the buyer wasn’t private equity.

Private equity has been pretty active in this industry recently. US firm Atlas is the most obvious example with the company buying Bovis last year and before that Permasteelisa. It also tried to buy building products firm Brickability and is known to have explored acquiring Mace’s construction arm.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs bought Mace’s Consult business earlier this year and others to see private equity investment in recent years have included consultants Gardiner & Theobald and Ridge as well as architect Foster + Partners.

Multiplex is being bought by Japanese engineer and contractor Obayashi for $650m (£490m). Multiplex employs around 2,300 people globally – including 700 in the UK – and has a turnover of $3.5bn (£2.7bn) while Obayashi dwarfs the business it is buying with around 17,000 employees and $17.5bn in revenue.