London firm is acquiring N.J.'s Hillier Architecture

A construction boom and upbeat economy are pushing a fragmented engineering and architecture industry toward consolidation, with a burst of buyout deals announced in the last year.

The latest is to be disclosed today, with Hillier Architecture, of Princeton, N.J., announcing its acquisition for $30 million by RMJM, a London architecture firm that has offices in 15 Asian, European and Middle Eastern countries.

The combined firm, to be called RMJM Hillier, said it hoped the merger would spur it to become one of the premier architecture firms in the world.

The 39-year-old Hillier Architecture has 300 employees, 60 based in Philadelphia. The new company will have 1,100 employees in 17 offices on four continents.

Projects for the firms include the Beijing Olympic Convention Center, GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C.'s global headquarters in England, and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia.

The purchase will give Hillier the resources to undertake design projects worldwide.

The deal gives RMJM its first presence in the Americas, and the company is eyeing the U.S. West Coast and South America for growth.

"The arena is now the world - not just the U.S. with spots here and there in the world," J. Robert Hillier, founder of Hiller Architecture, said in an interview. He will become deputy chairman of RMJM's holding company, MJM Group.

Peter Morrison, RMJM's chief executive officer, will hold the same post with the combined company.

This year, more than 200 merger-and-acquisition transactions are expected in the industry, said Zweigwhite Information Services L.L.C., a Massachusetts research and consulting company for the engineering and architecture, or design, industry. Last year, Zweigwhite tracked 165 transactions. That was up from 115 four years ago.

"There certainly seems to be something in the water by the number of firms that are seeming to link up here," said Steve Gido, principal in the financial advisory services group at Zweigwhite.

In March, design firm Edwards & Kelcey, of Morristown, N.J., was sold to Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., of Pasadena, Calif.

In January, a New York City design company, Vollmer Associates L.L.P., was sold to the publicly traded Canadian design firm Stantec Inc.