UGL, formerly known as the United Group, is an engineering company. The company provides construction, maintenance, and asset management services to the rail, resources, and infrastructure sectors, and corporate real estate, facilities management, and business process outsourcing services to property users. Its clients are large companies, governments and institutions in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. It was purchased by the

CIMIC Group CIMIC Group Limited (formerly Leighton Holdings) is an engineering-led construction, mining, services and public private partnerships leader working across the lifecycle of assets, infrastructure and resources projects. History Founded in 194 ...

in December 2016.

History

UGL was founded as an engineering construction firm in

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, Western Australia in 1970 by Charlie Bontempo, Sam Castelli, John Rubino and John Trettel. In 1988, it was re-branded as the United Construction Group. UGL has acquired a number of businesses, including engineering, construction, and facilities management business Kilpatrick Green in 1998, rail company Goninan in 1999, corporate real estate business KFPW in 2002, Thames Water Projects Asia in 2004, Singaporean real estate services company Premas International (UGL Premas) and

Alstom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...

's Australian and New Zealand transport and rail businesses in 2005, Chicago-based Equis Corporation (UGL Equis) and

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

-based Peak Security in 2006, and

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

-based Unicco Services Company (UGL Unicco) in 2007. In 2011, a commercial real estate firm

DTZ DTZ was a London-based commercial property company. Tracing its origins back to 1853, it merged with Cushman & Wakefield in 2015 and its brand was retired. History Debenham & Tewson was established in London in 1853. In 1913 it merged with Ch ...

was acquired, but was sold in 2014 to a consortium of

TPG Capital TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American private equity firm based in Fort Worth, Texas. TPG manages investment funds in growth capital, venture capital, public equity, and debt investments. The firm in ...

, PAG Asia Capital and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. DTZ In October 2016,

launched a successful

takeover offer In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast to the acquisi ...

for the company, with CIMIC applying in December 2016 to compulsorily acquire all remaining shares.

Timeline

*1994 – Listed on the

Australian Securities Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary Exchange (organized market), securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or c ...

as United Construction *1997 – Changed company name to United Group Limited *1998 – Acquisition of Kilpatrick Green *1999 – Acquisition of Goninan *2002 – Acquisition of KFPW from

Knight Frank Knight Frank LLP is a global real estate consultancy and estate agency headquartered in London, England. Knight Frank's global network has more than 488 offices across 57 territories and more than 20,000 people managing commercial, agricultur ...

PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a Multinational corporation, multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Fo ...

*2004 – Acquisition of Thames Water Projects Asia from

Thames Water Thames Water Utilities Limited, trading as Thames Water, is a British private utility company responsible for the water supply and waste water Wastewater (or waste water) is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking w ...

*2005 – Acquisition of Premas, and the Australian & New Zealand operations of

*2006 – Acquisition of Equis, Fischer Industries,

Goulburn Railway Workshops The Goulburn Rail Heritage Centre is located at the heritage-listed former railway workshops in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia, on the Main Southern railway line. Now a museum, it is also known as the Goulburn Rail Workshop and Goulburn R ...

, Peak Security and Steelplan *2007 – Acquisition of Proactive Communication Solutions and Unicco *2009 – Changed company name to UGL Limited *2011 – Acquisition of

*2014 – Disposal of DTZ *2016 – Taken over by

References

{{Reflist

External links

Company website
Companies based in Sydney Companies formerly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1970 Australian companies established in 1970 2016 mergers and acquisitions Engineering companies of Australia