AMEC Foster Wheeler, the engineering heavyweight which employs 4,000 people in Scotland, has shown confidence in the outlook for the North Sea by acquiring a laser survey firm with a big exposure to the area.
The purchase of Aberdeen-based Scopus Group looks likely to have generated multi-million pound payouts for the founders of the company, Andy Inglis and Tom Bryce.
The purchase price was not disclosed.
However, the deal comes 20 months after the Growth Capital Partners private equity firm acquired a minority stake in Scopus in exchange for providing £13m expansion funding for the business.
The latest accounts for Scopus show the business made £5.1 million profit in the 15 months to April.
Amec Foster Wheeler said: "This acquisition forms part of our growth strategy by further strengthening our project delivery capability across the upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas sectors."
The group was formed last month following the £2bn takeover of Swiss combine Foster Wheeler by London-based Amec. This created a business with big oil and gas services operations in areas ranging from offshore exploration and production to refining.
The takeover of Scopus was negotiated against the backdrop of a sharp drop in the oil price since June. It signals that Amec Foster Wheeler believes firms like Scopus still enjoy good growth prospects.
Scopus provides services such as laser surveys of assets like subsea pipeline systems, which can allow clients to cut the cost of maintaining production infrastructure.
Spending on new developments in the North Sea is expected to fall following the drop in the oil price. However, companies like Scopus may benefit from oil and gas firm's efforts to maximise the profitability of existing operations.
In its interim results announcement in August, Amec noted that so-called greenfield activity fell in Europe as expected in the first half. The company said then it had been doing well in the brownfield market.
Yesterday, Amec Foster Wheeler said it had been appointed by Chevron to provide engineering services on a project to help the US firm increase the recovery of oil from the Captain field 68 miles north of Aberdeen.
"This is a prestigious and challenging project that encompasses both greenfield and brownfield engineering, procurement and project management services, so is an excellent fit for our capabilities," said Nick Shorten, managing director of Amec Foster Wheeler's Greenfield business in Europe.
The purchase of Scopus will add to Amec Foster Wheeler's ability to offer services on the kind of late life assets that are increasingly common in the mature North Sea area. Amec Foster Wheeler said Scopus's lean engineering capability will allow it to provide a low-cost solution at the late-life stage of a facility prior to decommissioning.
Amec Foster Wheeler will also look to sell the expertise that Scopus has developed operating in the North Sea in a wider range of markets.
Scopus has subsidiaries in Brunei and Malaysia and an operation in Dubai. It has around 200 employees.
The latest accounts for Scopus Group Holdings show the company made £5.1m profit after tax on sales of £35.2m in the period 15 January 2013 to April 2014.
Its predecessor Scopus Engineering Holdings made £3.7m profit after tax in the year to April 2013.
Mr Inglis and Mr Bryce each held 33 per cent of the shares in Scopus Group Holdings when the group filed its annual return in July.
Amec's oil and gas arm was focused on the offshore upstream market, while Foster Wheeler was more geared towards the onshore and downstream markets.
The enlarged company employs around 4,000 people in Scotland. It has bases in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
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