"While we have a limited number of ongoing assignments and involving projects in
"Furthermore, we will no longer be pursuing any further assignments in
WSP has no employees or offices in
The
The decision came as WSP reported a year-over-year profit bump of 84 per cent in its fourth quarter and unveiled a three-year strategic plan. The blueprint, which folds into longer-term vision to double in size, aims to boost net revenues by more than 30 per cent and adjusted earnings by 40 per cent by 2024.
Once a boutique firm called Genivar, the 63-year-old company has swelled to 55,000 employees from 31,700 at the end of 2014. It has eclipsed
WSP's market value stood at
L'Heureux said he hopes to leverage the talent and scale gained via recent acquisitions — 14 since 2019, including the 7,000-employee environmental consulting firm Golder last year — to drive higher prices and efficiency.
"Our margin profile for the improvement is not about cost cutting," he said. "We are in a position to charge more for our services."
Over the next three years, WSP aims to grow its presence in several of its top segments, including environment. It also hopes to boost its activities in the power, energy, water and industry sectors while slightly reducing transportation exposure.
The company further plans to ratchet up "front end" consulting and strategic advisory work, which typically offers higher margins, and notch down engineering and design services to about 50 per cent exposure from the current 55 per cent.
Eventually it hopes to expand its "clean revenues" to more than half of its business as it looks to nab lower-emissions projects.
WSP scooped up several big contracts last quarter, helping to build its backlog organically by 10 per cent year over year to
One, called Clean Path New York, relates to a 288-kilometre transmission line planed for that state that will provide emissions-free energy to
The other, dubbed Firmina, is a project to complete the permitting for a 14,000-kilometre fibre-optic cable to be built by Google that will run under the sea from the east coast of
"
The company reported profits attributable to shareholders of
Revenue in the firm's fourth quarter totalled
On an adjusted basis, WSP said it earned
This report by
Companies in this story: (TSX:WSP, TSX:MG, TSX:K, TSX:GOOS)
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