Hill International (NYSE: HIL) is an American construction consulting firm. Founded in 1976, the company corporate headquarters are in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States since April 2015.
In 2017, Engineering News-Record magazine ranked Hill as the 8th largest construction management firm-for-fee and the 7th largest program management firm in the U.S. Hill's claims and consulting services (now "Discontinued Operations"), which include claims analysis, litigation support, expert witness testimony, cost and damages assessment, delay and disruption analysis, lender/technical advisory and the Project Neutral, accounted for $169 million in revenue in 2016 of the total of $689 million for the company.
Video Hill International
Global structure
Hill International (not including its "Discontinued Operations") has offices in six primary regions of the world, including:
- U.S.
- Latin America
- Europe
- Middle East
- North Africa
- Asia/Asia Pacific
Maps Hill International
History Of Firm
The Start of the Company
Hill was founded in 1976 by Irvin E. Richter and Michael W. C. Emerson, P.E. Richter soon bought out Emerson, and named himself the "Vice-President" despite being the only employee other than his executive assistant. The VP title and the "International" in the corporate name were intended to make the company appear to be a large professional entity. The first offices were in Richter's home in Willingboro, NJ. The name "Hill" was to designate the preferred location of the company office (Cherry Hill, NJ). However that move never took place. A short time later the office moved to the Levitt Building in Willingboro where it stayed until 2002. Richter had worked in Construction Claims Consulting at Wagner, Hohns, Inglis Inc., Mount Holly, NJ from 1974 to 1976 before he started his firm providing similar services.
Richter immediately began a series of important acquisitions to bring the necessary professional expertise to Hill. One of the key moves was to bring CMS, (a Critical Path Method (CPM) scheduling company) into the fold. CMS was formed by A. James Waldon, Dwight Zink and William De Vos. Several of the principals at CMS as well as an employee, Joseph J. Ranieri, had worked at Mauchly Assoc., a consulting company as Senior Vice President, a company which was founded by Dr. John W. Mauchly, co-inventor of the computer. Zink and Ranieri, were two of the early practitioners of CPM, an early application of computers to construction and procurement scheduling. They helped establish CMS, a CPM consulting firm, that worked extensively in scheduling construction projects and forensic scheduling analysis, and both worked at Hill after the acquisition.
Hill prospered in the 1970s because of the explosion of local construction projects funded by the newly established United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA required the use of the Federal Acquisition Regulation and claims (as "Requests for Equitable Adjustments") became the new norm for local procurement. Hill had about 20 full time employees by the end of 1979. In 1980 Hill opened its first branch office in Washington, D.C., and began to service the US Federal government and government Contractors from there.
By the 1980s another series of events in the construction industry fueled a further increase in construction claims - the nuclear power plant. The construction of these plants was highly regulated and had resulted in huge overruns in cost and schedule for almost every plant built. Over 46 plants had been commissioned in the 1980s alone. At this time the Nuclear Power Generating Industry was at the end of a very rapid increase in constructing plants and began to terminate many projects which had already begun due in large part to nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. This brought another explosion in construction claims for schedule and cost overruns as well as termination claims, including utilities, engineers, nuclear reactor manufacturers as well as contractors and subcontractors. At this time Hill International brought in William J. Doyle to oversee the growth in nuclear related claims. Doyle had through a series of acquisitions and hard work, built a small mechanical contracting company into one of the largest and most respected mechanical contractors in the nation, General Energy Resources, Inc. Doyle then served as Senior VP of Northrop Corporation before he became an executive of Hill International overseeing much of the nuclear claims work as well as other multi-million dollar projects.
Doyle oversaw in the 1980s and 1990s the beginnings of the expansion from a claims consulting firm into a project management company. Hill's initial ventures into Project Management was through a concept called "Troubled Project Turnaround". In 1981, Hill was involved a supporting a major litigation at the Tropicana Casino & Resort Atlantic City where what was supposed to be a $180 million project almost doubled to $300 million. Hill provided technical expertise in resolving the claims and litigation support. It also helped manage the completion of the construction. According to Richter, "... we became a construction manager as a result of that project and eventually also became involved in project management and program management afterward."
Hill continued to expand its management role (re: Troubled Project Turnarounds") at the City of Niagara Falls, NY. Hill helped the City gain effective control of the stalled construction of its wastewater treatment plant project and maintain positive liaison with State and Federal regulatory agencies. Hill then acted as the City's Construction management (CM) for the completion of reconstruction of the wastewater treatment plant. The City had actually been one of Hill's first clients in 1977 when it hired the firm After having been impressed by its work for a Contractor who was in a claims situation with the City. Similar troubled project CM work took place at the Point Pleasant, Pa Water Intake and Pump Station.
Moreover, during this time frame Hill became one of the initial Project Management Oversight contractors for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) during the construction of the Sacramento (CA) Light Rail. Hill next did work for the FTA on the LA Metro. Hill was now included in this FTA list of Contractors who were mostly were large, established CM firms such as Daniel, Mann, Johnson, & Mendenhall, Fluor Daniel, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Stone & Webster, among others.
It was also in 1988 that Hill entered other distinct expansions of its services by acquiring first Gibbs and Hill an engineering / design firm in New York City. Also in 1988 Hill entered the environmental market by purchasing, Kaselaan & D'Angelo (K&D) , an air-quality design firm that specialized in asbestos clean-up consulting. The acquisitions raised the company revenue to $200 million with over 2,000 employees. These acquisitions were ultimately unsuccessful and Hill International sold Gibbs and Hill in three parts to United Engineers, then a subsidiary of Raytheon in 1993 and K&D to ATC Environmental, of Mount Laurel, NJ in 1995.
At this time, Hill's bank financing disappeared as Hill's business fell off with sales bottoming out at $25 million and the workforce declining to 250 employees. Then in late 1995 Hill's major creditor, First Fidelity Bank, N.A., sought immediate accelerated payment of a loan of $6.1 million. The Bank alleged that an event of default had occurred when Hill sold off Gibbs and Hill that had served as part of the collateral for these loans. Hill's however prevailed in the litigation. Then Hill began a successful turnaround by concentrating on its core construction claims business and seeking to expand its growing construction management sector.
Acquisitions and divestitures
Hill has acquired a number of businesses during recent years as part of an expansion program.
In 2006, the company acquired UK-based JR Knowles, which was at the time the largest construction claims consultancy in the world - the acquisition saw Hill take that position and established claims offices in numerous locations globally. The acquisition also saw the subsequent divestiture of Knowles' legal operations.
Other acquisitions have included Maple Consult (UK) 2005, Pickavance Consulting (UK) 2006, KJM and Associates (USA) 2007, Gerens (Spain) 2007, John Shreeves & Partners (UK) 2008, Euromost Polska (Poland) 2008, PCI Group (USA) 2008 and Chitester Consulting (USA) 2008.
On December 15, 2009, Hill announced the acquisition of Boyken International - a project management and claims consultancy based in the Southern US and Caribbean. On 4 January 2010 they announced the acquisition of TRS Consultants, Inc. a firm that provides civil engineering, program management, construction management and information technology services primarily to the transportation and infrastructure market in the USA.
On February 28, 2011, Hill announced that its Madrid-based subsidiary Gerens Hill International S.A. completed the acquisition of 60% of the outstanding capital stock of Engineering S.A.,one of the largest project management firms in Brazil. Engineering S.A. has approximately 400 professionals with main offices in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and an additional office in Parauapebas. The company provides project management, construction management and engineering consulting services throughout Latin America.
In May 2013, Hill acquired the South African consultancy, Binnington Copeland Associates, a firm with offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
In November 2014, the acquisition of Cadogans adding to their expert consultancy offering a number of experts in engineering and building services, based in Glasgow, UK.
On December 20, 2016, Hill announced that it had entered into a definitive stock purchase agreement to sell its Construction Claims Group to Bridgepoint Development Capital, part of international private equity group Bridgepoint, for $147 million in an all-cash transaction.. The final deal closed on May 5, 2017, with a reduction in the purchase price of $7.0 million, to $140.0 million in cash, an increase of $3.0 million in the working capital that Hill must deliver to Bridgepoint, from $35.4 million to $38.4 million, and additional specific indemnification of the buyer. The former Hill Construction Consulting Group is now doing business as HKA.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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