Premier sold to investment co.

[2RUDE]

A buddy of mine that works for Premier said he got a letter in the mail from his 401K co. stating that Premier was bought by the Willbros Group. Anybody else have anymore info? I guess this puts to rest the rumor USIC is buying them, unless of course they used a "straw party".

[GWJ_CAS]

Willbros is not an investment company. They are a very large pipeline construction company specializing in oil & gas arenas. I would very seriously doubt Willbros acting as any type of "straw buyer" on behalf of USIC. Willbros could buy USIC with the spare change they find mingled in their pocket lint.

[2RUDE]

I stand corrected then.....

[Lucky219]

The rumor is that usic was buying consolidated.

[ProfessionalLocator]

Unfortunately these buying and selling of controlling interest in our locate contracting firms hurts our industry.

The client utilities sign a contract with a firm and then hammer out a working relationship once operations start. When controlling interest is sold the company may keep it's name but is effectively a new firm. The new owners often set new requirements on their offices. The most common requirement is we just put up X dollars and now you will give Y return regardless of how this affects the quality of work performed. There may still be the contract they signed in place but for the utilities they are now starting over with a new firm.

The contract utilities are not pleased with the results of these buying and selling of controlling interests. Due to the expense of going back to in-house locating this option is not open to most utilites, they have considered it.