LONDON, March 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Intertek, the leading international provider of quality and safety services, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Moody International ("Moody") from the alternative investment firm Investcorp.

Moody is a worldwide technical services organisation dedicated to reducing clients' risks by providing technical inspection services, technical staffing services, consulting and training, and global management system certification and is a market leader in its chosen segments . It has 2,500 employees in 60 countries.

A leading global technical services platform

Moody's services are used by engineering, procurement & construction (EPC) companies, energy companies and component manufacturers involved in the construction and operation of energy facilities. It is the leading provider of visual technical inspection services worldwide. These services help multinational clients to ensure the accurate and on-time installation of new facilities through inspection and expediting of components prior to installation. Moody's asset integrity management and expert consulting services also help clients to increase the value of their operating assets. It provides independent analysis of data, chemical and materials, risk modelling, laser scanning and other forensic analysis to help companies reduce down-time, failure risks and associated costs and to extend the lifecycle of assets. In addition Moody has gained recognition as one of the largest global providers of customised technical, leadership, marine and behaviour-based safety consulting and training for the oil & gas and other high-risk industries.

Moody will extend Intertek's existing capabilities in technical inspection and asset integrity management across all geographic regions including Eastern Europe and with new footprints in South America and Africa, resulting in full coverage across EMEA, Middle East, Asia Pacific and the Americas.

Intertek provides expert services across the energy sector including compliance consulting, product and component certification, emissions, and a wide range of production, product and supply chain related testing, inspection and analytical services. Moody and Intertek will be able to offer a complementary mixture of services to clients across the entire energy chain.

Management Systems Certification

Moody is a global management systems certification provider, delivering an extensive range of services in the fields of quality, environmental, occupational health and safety, food, automotive and marine fishery certification. It provides systems certification services in over 25 countries for ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and ISO 22000 standards, among others. Moody is a market leader in Asia and one of the top 3 providers in China and Japan. Moody's worldwide presence will enable Intertek to extend its existing systems certification capabilities further into Africa, Middle East and greater Europe. With a global systems certification reach, Intertek and Moody will be able to better support local and multinational clients with their needs for a variety of global or local auditing and management systems certification services.

Intertek expects the acquisition to be completed by the middle of the year, after competition clearances. Unified services will commence after completion. Moody will join the Industry & Assurance division of Intertek.

"Moody is a leader in its chosen markets and will strengthen Intertek's industry services and systems certification capabilities globally," said Wolfhart Hauser, Chief Executive of Intertek Group. "We will be able to offer Intertek and Moody clients a range of highly complementary quality and safety services across the entire energy chain covering energy assets, processes and products".

"Moody's business geographies will deepen and extend Intertek's global coverage and increase our reach and service portfolio for clients," said Stefan Butz, Group Executive Vice President of Intertek's Industry & Assurance division. "Moody will help us meet our clients' increasing demand for independent quality and safety support in some of the world's fastest growing regions, where Moody has a strong presence. Our extended global platform will let us develop innovative technical service support including Asset Integrity Management across the wider energy and industrial markets in the future, leveraging Intertek's global resources and expertise".

"Moody and Intertek are a perfect fit and will enable us to provide intuitive service bundling together that is tailored to our clients' different operations and needs," said Brendan Connolly, Chief Executive Officer of Moody. "We can offer our world class technical inspection, consultancy and training services to Intertek's clients and we will benefit from Intertek's expertise in leading quality and safety across all industries. This is a compelling combination for our clients and for our people - we are very excited about our joint future."

"As a private equity owner we are pleased to have supported Moody's management over the past four years and congratulate Brendan and his team who have grown the company so successfully," said James Mahoney, a Managing Director at Investcorp. "We are delighted with the outcome of this investment for our clients and it is the right time for us to be handing on this outstanding company to a new parent who brings considerable synergy."