Naval shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] on Friday said it has agreed to acquire UniversalPegasus International (UPI), an engineering services firm serving the oil and gas market, in a deal that expands its still relatively small footprint in the broad energy sector and its non-defense business.
Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in June pending regulatory approvals, were not disclosed. In January HII spent $46 million to acquire S.M. Stoller Corp., which provides environmental, nuclear and technical consulting services to the Department of Energy, environmental management and commercial nuclear services markets.
Mike Petters, HII’s president and CEO, has said that he is looking to build on his company’s engineering and manufacturing expertise.
“The management team at UP has tremendous experience in the energy infrastructure market as well as strong relationships with customers,” Petters said in a statement. “We view this acquisition as an opportunity to create further value for our stakeholders while entering the growing oil and gas market with a reputable and established company.”
Houston-based UPI is ranked 61 among the top 500 design teams as ranked by Engineering News Record. The “vast majority” of UPI’s work is engineering services with some construction management, an HII spokeswoman told Defense Daily. She said about 83 percent of their work is onshore and the rest offshore.
UPI’s customers include Enbridge Energy Partners [EEP], Phillips 66 [PSX], Hess [HES], BP [BP], Kinder Morgan [KMP], Enersis S.A. [ENI], Chevron [CVX], Royal Dutch Shell [RDS], TransCanada, and others. The company has about 1,500 employees.
UPI provides services for pipelines, facilities and infrastructure, subsea and topsides, survey and inspection, and construction management. The company has or will perform work for TransCanada on all four phases of the Keystone Pipeline System, including the proposed Keystone XL project that awaits approval by the United States government.
UPI’s management is remaining with the company. Once the deal closes, UPI will report to Christ Kastner, HII’s corporate vice president and general manager for Corporate Development.
UPI did not use a financial adviser in the deal.