Acquisition of Australian Minerals Specialists

SLR Consulting (UK) has recently acquired GSS Environmental (GSSE) who are an Australian based consultancy firm for clients in the mining, minerals, land development and natural resources industries.

GSSE has offices based in Newcastle, New South Wales and Mackay around Australia. With 50 employees the firm advises on about 60% of the mines found in Australia including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata.

SLR recently secured £50m in funding to help drive further acquisitions and this sees SLR's first dip into this funding. Other acquisitions SLR have made previously have included Metago who offer environmental consulting services to the mining industry in sub-Saharan Africa and Western Australia, as well as Australian environmental consultancy Heggies (Pty) and Alaskan firm Hoefler Consulting Group, among others.

David Richards, Chief Executive of SLR, said: “This new acquisition is in line with our continued strategy to augment organic growth by the selective acquisition of high quality consulting firms in growth regions and market sectors and we are delighted to welcome the high-calibre GSSE team to SLR.

“This move helps to expand SLR’s international environmental consultancy footprint and our combined operations in Australia now includes 225 employees providing specialist environmental services to the energy, mining, industrial, waste management, infrastructure and planning and development sectors.”

GSSE was founded in 2003 and has grown rapidly into a multi-skilled dynamic team of environmental professionals with significant experience in both industry and government. It provides a wide range of environmental services taking projects from the planning stages of development through to operational stages and decommissioning.