Arcadis NV

Arcadis NV is a global design, engineering and management consulting company based in the Zuidas, Amsterdam, Netherlands. It has its origins in 1868. The company is a member of the Next 150 index.

Arcadis has over 300 offices in 40 countries.

History

The company has its origins in Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, a land reclamation company founded in 1888.

It changed its name to Arcadis in 1997. The name is derived from the mythological Arcadia. The logo is the fire salamander, a species which can only live in an ecologically stable environment.

Arcadis has grown via mergers and acquisitions since 1990, including the British firms AYH in 2005, EC Harris in 2011, and Hyder Consulting in 2014.

Axtell Yates Hallett / Arcadis UK

AYH was a British quantity surveying firm, whose head office was based in London with other offices in Manchester, Leeds, Newmarket, Birmingham, Camberley, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The firm was founded by Stanley Axtell and his colleagues Messrs Yates and Hallett when they set up a Quantity Surveying business known as AYH in the City of London in 1946. Throughout this period, the firm grew steadily and broadened both its service base to include firstly project management and subsequently building surveying and facilities consultancy and its area of operation with the opening of UK regional and overseas offices. Following a period of retrenchment during the economic recession of the early 1990s, the firm was incorporated in February 1994. In March 1999, the holding of the major shareholders was purchased by a team of existing senior managers, led by David Thompson, already a major shareholder himself. At the beginning of 2002, AYH restructured its operations from a skill and regional office-based structure into fully integrated market sector groups.