WSP Global (WSP) confirmed its interest in Arcadis, offering ~$7.5B to take the company out at a near-50% premium or ~10x NTM EBITDA - a hair above where WSP currently trades.

With the prospective financing package split evenly between cash and equity, management still expects high single digit accretion - with that figure climbing to mid-teens after synergies…

… as costs are stripped out from their overlapping geographic footprints.

Like its recent $4.5B acquisition of TRC, Arcadis would accelerate WSP’s push into private markets if closed (big IF)…

… and would take its YTD M&A total to nearly $12B, roughly five times greater than its previous peak in 2022. While the company’s scale enables it…

… our sense is that it’s a deliberate bet, with the value of once siloed proprietary data being unlocked by the application of artificial intelligence.

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