Murray & Roberts expects to finalise the acquisition of a US oil and gas engineering and construction firm within the next four months, according to group CE Henry Laas. "We are in an advanced stage of negotiations," Laas said on Wednesday. "We think we can do a deal before the end of June if all goes well". The deal would not be "material" as the group was steering clear of large acquisitions in the US owing to inflated valuations. "But we don’t need to buy a big business to establish ourselves in that market. What we really need is a company with a good track record, an established client base and a reasonable order book that we can acquire and grow," Laas said. In the six months to December, Murray & Roberts’s cash reserves, net of debt, rose 18% to R1.3bn. "Acquisitions for us are important, and the one in the US will impact the cash position in the second half of the year," as would the unwinding of a few oil and gas projects. The group was also looking at other takeover opport...
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