Local water engineering specialist SSI Engineers and Environmental Consultants relaunched itself as Royal HaskoningDHV at a glittering event last night, 21 August, at The Forum in Bryanston, Johannesburg. The rebranding came about as the DHV Group (of which SSI was part) merged with Dutch international Royal Haskoning. “In February we announced our intention for Royal Haskoning and DHV to merge to become one company, and on 2 July we launched our new organisation,” said Bertrand van Ee, chair of the Royal Haskoning Group, at the event.

Three other companies based in Southern Africa – mining consultancy Turgis, Royal Haskoning and DHV Mozambique – will also fall under the Royal HaskoningDHV brand. “By adopting a new brand we are not merely swopping our logo and corporate colours, we are joining forces with multinational project teams,” said Royal HaskoningDHV’s South African CEO, Nyami Mandindi. The combinedresource base of experts and professionals now numbers 8 000, with 100 offices in 35 countries across the globe. Royal HaskoningDHV carries out 30 000 projects a year.

The new company – Royal HaskoningDHV – remains independent and wholly trust-owned, and with the backing of a financially sound balance sheet, the merger of 2 July will accelerate the company’s strategy of international expansion. As indicated by Van Ee, the company views the current opportunities for growth to be predominantly located in Southern Africa, as well as in India, South East Asia, the Middle East, Australia and Brazil, with Van Ee targeting 15% growth per annum in the Southern African context through both organic growth, and further mergers and acquisitions.

“The consulting engineering game is changing in South Africa with a number of new entrants through consolidation and so forth. We want to play in that space and this gives us the opportunity to do so with the advantage of increased capacity in areas where we previously lacked depth,” concluded Mandindi.