A Member of Pat McKeough’s Inner Circle recently asked for his advice on WSP Global, a leading professional services firm that provides strategic advisory, engineering, and design services to clients in the transportation, infrastructure, environment, building, and energy sectors across the globe.
Pat likes the highly resilient, asset-light business model coupled with a record $16.41 billion backlog which offers exceptional predictability in an uncertain economic environment, especially the pivot toward the high-growth sectors of power, renewable energy, and environmental consulting.
WSP GLOBAL INC. (Symbol WSP on Toronto; www.wsp.com) is a professional services consulting firm. It employs about 75,000 people, mainly engineers, technicians, scientists, environmental specialists, planners, and architects. The company is headquartered in Montreal and has over 531 offices in 50 countries.
WSP’s recently completed or ongoing major projects are varied. They include the following: a two-million-square-foot Children’s hospital in Atlanta, a 1,325 megawatts offshore wind farm in Italy, a 12-storey logistics centre in Hong Kong, and National Bank’s new head office, which is a 40-storey office tower in downtown Montreal.
In October 2025, WSP completed the acquisition of Ricardo plc, a U.K.-based global consulting firm with two units:
1) The first segment is focused on air quality, water management, energy resilience and advisory services, along with Rail and Mass Transit business projects. It employs approximately 1,700 professionals.
2) The second segment concentrates on automotive, industrial and performance products/services, with approximately 1,000 professionals delivering propulsion design and systems engineering contract work.
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WSP paid $670 million for Ricardo. The purchase should accelerate its three-year Global Strategic Action Plan, which WSP started this year.
Then on December 15, 2025, the company announced its intention to acquire TRC Companies, a U.S.-based engineering and consulting firm specializing in the power and energy sectors. The 8,000-person firm is controlled by the private equity firm, Warburg Pincus.
WSP will pay $4.5 billion for TRC. That firm’s revenue in the 12 months ended June 30 was $1.19 billion U.S.
To fund the acquisition, WSP sold $850 million of its stock to investors including the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. The Caisse is its largest shareholder and now holds a 14% interest.
WSP Global’s latest acquisition should be a solid fit for the company
In the three months ended September 27, 2025, WSP’s revenue increased 15.3%, to $3.46 billion from $3.00 billion a year earlier. Three of its geographic segments had higher sales, partly offset by a slight decline in its APAC (Asia Pacific) region. At the end of the quarter, its backlog was a solid $16.41 billion, up 10.6% from $14.84 billion a year ago.
Excluding one-time items, the company earned $368.8 million, or $2.82 a share. That was up 31.8% from $279.8 million, or $2.24.
TRC should be a good fit for WSP. The addition of its 8,000 employees increases WSP’s Power and Energy segment headcount to over 27,000. That makes WSP the largest engineering and design firm in the U.S. The unit will now account for 34% of its revenue.
Recommendation in Pat’s Inner Circle: WSP Global Inc. is okay to hold.
