DTZ owner considers demerger
DTZ’s Australian owner UGL, which bought DTZ for £77m in a pre-pack deal in December 2011, has appointed Goldman Sachs to carry out a strategic review of the business that could lead to a range of outcomes, from maintaining the current structure, to a spin-off of DTZ.
At the time of the takeover, UGL had said the two companies had an “exceptional fit” across complementary locations and shared a similar “cultural ethos”, the Times pointed out this week.
UGL has reportedly come under some pressure to think about demerging DTZ, as some investors think it would attract a higher valuation as a standalone company. Richard Leupen, UGL’s outgoing chief executive, said: “Given the substantial size of both [the property and engineering] businesses, it is the right time to review UGL’s corporate structure to fully capitalise on the strong growth opportunities across the engineering and property services sectors.”
The FT noted that UGL’s traditional engineering and maintenance business has been struggling, in contrast to the strong performance of its property services operations. It added that UGL is expected to update the market on the review by the time of its annual results in August – if not earlier.
