Strategic acquisition of FES Ghent (FESG) expands Jensen Hughes’ global market leadership via strengthening its ability to serve clients in Belgium and Continental Europe.
BALTIMORE, June 14, 2021 – Jensen Hughes, a global leader in safety, security and risk-based engineering and consulting, announced today its acquisition of FES Ghent (FESG). The market leader in fire protection engineering in Belgium, FESG specializes in code compliance, risk assessment, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), evacuation analysis and performance-based design in complex commercial, infrastructure, transportation and tunnel projects.
“FESG owner Xavier Deckers and his team have built an impressive business focused on providing high-quality client service. We are honored to have their world-class specialists join us in supporting our clients’ fire and life safety requirements wherever they operate in the world with integrated, end-to-end solutions,” says Raj Arora, CEO, Jensen Hughes.
FESG is the most recent strategic acquisition by Jensen Hughes, a portfolio company of Gryphon Investors, that reflects the company’s long-term commitment to deliver its integrated, end-to-end services to the global market. The acquisition enhances Jensen Hughes’ robust, European fire protection and global tunnel ventilation capabilities. It also strengthens Jensen Hughes’ ability to help clients in the fire, building and safety industry and implement global best practices to manage these in a prevention-oriented and cost-effective manner.
In addition to its investments worldwide, Jensen Hughes’ focus on the European market includes its 2018 acquisition of the UK and Ireland firm Jeremy Gardner Associates (JGA), 2019 acquisition of International Fire Investigators and Consultants (IFIC) and 2020 acquisition of L2 Fire Safety based in Finland.
FESG was founded in 2009 and is owned and managed by Xavier Deckers, who holds ties to the University of Ghent, a rich source of talent feeding into the company. “For over a decade, we have built a scalable business around our clients’ need for code compliance, risk assessment, CFD analysis, evacuation analysis and performance-based design.” said Deckers. “Jensen Hughes is just as deeply committed to technical excellence as FESG has been since our founding. Its market leadership, global scale and deep bench of scientists, engineers and consultants opens up tremendous opportunities to provide an even more holistic solution for our clients.
For more information, visit jensenhughes.com, jensenhughes.com/europe or https://www.fesg.be/en.
About Jensen Hughes
Jensen Hughes is the global leader in safety, security and risk-based engineering and consulting. Every day, our international teams of 1,400+ engineers, technical experts, architects and consultants partner with clients in 100+ countries to make our world safe, secure and resilient. Since 1939, we have earned trust among our clients, people and communities by bringing integrity to our relationships, innovation to our industry and technical excellence to many of the most complex challenges in the world. Our major business lines include fire protection engineering, risks and hazards, security risk consulting, emergency management and planning, and forensic engineering. For more information, visit www.jensenhughes.com.
About FESG
Founded in 2009 as a spinoff of Ghent University, FESG is a market-leading fire protection engineering firm comprised of a highly experienced and passionate team committed to delivering technical excellence for clients across the full spectrum of services. Operating in Belgium, our clients trust us to design creative solutions through a performance-based approach and provide the optimum safety measures. For more information, visit https://www.fesg.be/en.
About Gryphon Investors
Based in San Francisco, Gryphon Investors (www.gryphoninvestors.com) is a leading private equity firm focused on profitably growing and competitively enhancing middle-market companies in partnership with experienced management. The firm has managed over $5.0 billion of equity investments and capital since 1997. Gryphon targets making equity investments of $50 million to $300 million in portfolio companies with enterprise values ranging from approximately $100 million to $600 million. Gryphon prioritizes investment opportunities where it can form strong partnerships with owners and executives to build leading companies, utilizing Gryphon’s capital, specialized professional resources, and operational expertise.