Consultant set up in 1946 will now include bosses from Horizon Capital on its enlarged board
A private equity firm is pumping more than £40m into Oxfordshire consultant Ridge, the firm has announced.
The multi-disciplinary was set up in 1946 and has a dozen offices around the country including its base at Blenheim Palace.
London private equity firm Horizon Capital, which specialises in technology and professional services firms, and Ridge signed the deal earlier this month, Ridge senior partner Adrian O’Hickey confirmed.
Ridge declined to say how much Horizon is getting for its money but O’Hickey said it was “significant”.
Asked whether Horizon was getting a controlling share of the firm, which employs 1,000 people and is forecast to see income rise to £112m this year from £93m in 2022, O’Hickey said: “We are running and controlling the business and it will continue to be managed in the same way.”
Ridge is run by a four-strong executive group which includes O’Hickey and partners Graham Blackburn, who heads up the firm’s architecture business, Jolyon Price, who leads the firm’s project management arm and Phil Baker, in charge of its building services division.
O’Hickey, who started at Ridge in 1986 and is only the firm’s fifth senior partner in its 77 year history, said the four will be joined by Horizon managing partner, Luke Kingston, and its investment director Jack Teasdale, on an enlarged board which will meet once a month.
He said he had been speaking to Horizon about a deal since last summer and added: “This will enable investment in people and acquisitions. We have made several acquisitions and this will accelerate that trajectory.”
The firm’s recent moves include snapping up Projex, a project and cost management business based in Leeds and Birmingham, two years ago, while the year before it bought Manchester structural and civil engineer Scott Hughes.
Explaining the move, Horizon’s Kingston said: “[Ridge has] already taken opportunities for sustained growth in recent years, and we will help them to be even more ambitious in the firms and talent they reach out to.
“This professional expertise will be vital in the next few years as the UK upgrades its infrastructure and brings its building stock up to net zero standards. The winners in this market should be the consultants who have the trust of their clients.”
Ridge is currently working as project and cost manager on a £300m-plus scheme in Oxford for the Los Angeles-based Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine.
Designed by Foster & Partners, it is being bankrolled by American billionaire Lawrence J Ellison, who founded EITM in 2009 and has an estimated fortune of $91bn (£74bn). Laing O’Rourke is set to start construction work later this year.
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