Skip to main content

Atkins sells stake in London’s M25 ring road

Infrastructure engineering firm WS Atkins sold its stake in London’s M25 orbital road to a consortium of institutional investors for nearly €79 million (£66.3 million). Atkins, a publicly listed UK company, sold to Edge Orbital Holdings 2 Limited and the deal for its minority stake is expected to be complete by March 2017, the end of the financial year, according to a statement by Atkins. In October, the Edge Orbital consortium picked up Skanska’s 40% stake in Connect Plus, which manages the M25. Skanska so
December 14, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Infrastructure engineering firm WS 3005 Atkins sold its stake in London’s M25 orbital road to a consortium of institutional investors for nearly €79 million (£66.3 million).

Atkins, a publicly listed UK company, sold to Edge Orbital Holdings 2 Limited and the deal for its minority stake is expected to be complete by March 2017, the end of the financial year, according to a statement by Atkins.

In October, the Edge Orbital consortium picked up 2296 Skanska’s 40% stake in Connect Plus, which manages the M25. Skanska sold for around €315 million (£265 million). 1146 Balfour Beatty and 2643 Egis remain shareholders in Connect Plus.

The 188km M25 was completed in 1986 and is Europe’s second longest urban orbital road, only 10km shorter than the Berliner Ring in Germany. Most of the road was built as a dual three-lane motorway but many sections have been widened. Around half is now dual four-lane with some dual five and dual six.

Daily traffic volumes have reached at times nearly 200,000 vehicles.

In May 2009, the UK’s government 2309 Highways Agency – now 8100 Highways England - awarded Connect Plus a 30-year design-build-finance-operate contract to manage the M25 and key arterial link roads. The contract included the now-completed widening of the M25 to four lanes between Junctions 16 and 23 and between Junctions 27 and 30, as well as refurbishment of the Hatfield Tunnel on the A1(M) motorway running north from London.

Connect Plus is also delivering other major improvements, including widening around 45km of the M25, refurbishing tunnels and bridges and installing hundreds of variable messaging signs (VMS) and gantries.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Simulation Systems wins England traffic signal management upgrade
    June 21, 2016
    Highways England has awarded a contract to deliver a central traffic signal control and management system for south-east England to Simulation Systems Limited (SSL) Central to the contract, for England’s motorway and major A-roads, will be a Siemens Stratos system which is designed to be the UK’s first cloud-hosted, fully integrated traffic control and management solution. The project will also include Hosted-SCOOT, a real time UTC and adaptive traffic control system. It is already used to manage and
  • UK road maintenance industry’s new safe driving through roadworks radio campaign
    October 22, 2013
    Leading UK road maintenance companies have this week joined together with the Highways Agency to launch a national radio campaign to ask drivers to ‘take extra care’ through roadworks. Messages being aired on commercial radio stations across England from 21st October-3rd November consist of a series of three hard-hitting messages to raise awareness among the public of the need to drive safely through roadworks.
  • IAM suggests confusion over UK’s SMART motorways
    April 13, 2015
    The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has expressed concern that widespread confusion exists amongst UK drivers on how best to use SMART motorways. These were officially introduced around this time in 2014 to replace Managed Motorways as the solution to the UK’s congested major routes. However concerns have been raised over the safety of the SMART motorways. England’s first all-lane running motorway, without a hard shoulder, was the 2.5km stretch of the M25 between junctions 23 and 25. Complete schemes
  • New design consultant partnership
    July 7, 2017
    A new strategic design consultant partnership is now being formed between infrastructure group Balfour Beatty, Atkins, Mott MacDonald and WSP. The collaborative UK Strategic Design Consultant Partnership is said to offer a new level of openness, collaboration and innovation for the construction industry.