Acquisition expands Jensen Hughes’ European presence while broadening L2’s offerings in fire protection engineering
BALTIMORE, March 5th, 2020 – Jensen Hughes, a global leader in safety, security and risk-based engineering and consulting, announced today its acquisition of L2 Fire Safety, the top fire safety engineering firm in Finland with a specialization in code consulting and performance-based design work for large, complex projects.
Over the last few years, Jensen Hughes, a portfolio company of Gryphon Investors, has made a number of investments in prominent fire protection engineering firms worldwide, beginning with its acquisition of UK and Ireland-based firm, Jeremy Gardner Associates (JGA) in 2018 and its most recent acquisitions of IFIC, based in Glasgow and SAFire, based in Seoul. L2 is one of the leading voices championing higher standards in the Finnish fire safety engineering industry, and since its founding, has been a part of most major construction projects across the country.
“The L2 team, under JP Laaksonen’s leadership, has been at the forefront of Finland’s fire and life safety codes, and has created a legacy of technical excellence that will impact the country and surrounding countries for decades,” says Raj Arora, CEO, Jensen Hughes. “We are thrilled to have them join our team and bring their expertise to our growing client needs in Europe.”
L2 was co-founded in 1998 by Juha-Pekka (JP) Laaksonen, who has served as CEO since 2012 when co-founder Jukka Laine retired. The company’s 36 employees work out of its Helsinki headquarters, or one of its satellite offices in Tampere, Kuopio and Turku.
“Jensen Hughes offers us the opportunity to provide our clients with new services and a level of technical excellence our competitors cannot deliver. Since the combination will also provide new career paths and resources for our employees, we believe L2 will become an even more attractive workplace in competing for the industry’s experts,” says JP Laaksonen.
About L2
L2 Fire Safety Ltd, established in 1998, is a leading fire safety consultancy and design firm. Our expertise is based on long-term hands-on experience, strong theoretical background and extensive networking. Our most common assignments relate to fire design for buildings and risk management, but our expertise extends to all areas of fire and life safety. For more information, visit www.l2.fi/english/.
Gryphon Investors<>
Based in San Francisco, Gryphon Investors 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 $4.9 billions of equity investments and capital since 1997. Gryphon targets making equity investments of $100 million to $300 million in portfolio companies with sales ranging from approximately $100 million to $500 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. For more information, visit www.gryphoninvestors.com.