Irish engineering company Obelisk acquired by Portuguese conglomerate

3 May 2022

Obelisk Dublin offices. Image: Obelisk

Obelisk will join Grupo Visabeira to expand its business further into Europe and the US.

Irish engineering services company Obelisk has been acquired by Constructel Visabeira, a telecommunications and energy networks engineering company based in Portugal. It is a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate Grupo Visabeira.

Founded in 1996, Obelisk currently employs around 250 people across Ireland and the UK. It is headquartered in Cavan.

In joining Grupo Visabeira, the Irish company will be able to expand its current operations into new markets such as France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and the US.

Obelisk will continue to provide its existing services to clients in the Irish and UK telecoms and energy sectors as part of the Portuguese conglomerate.

It will also increase its technical capacity to help build further growth opportunities in digitalisation, technology infrastructure, fibre deployment and the continued international investment in mobile and wireless networks.

Obelisk’s newly appointed CEO, Ronnie Delaney, said he is very pleased to welcome a new chapter in the company’s growth. “The coming together of Obelisk and Constructel Visabeira will create one of Europe’s leading telecommunications and energy services companies, with expected annual turnover in excess of €1bn.”

Delaney added that Obelisk would be “well positioned” to accelerate new growth opportunities, as well as continue investing and expanding its workforce across the UK and Ireland.

Obelisk founding directors Colm Murphy and Padraig Brady, who started the company 26 years ago, said they look forward to “this new era of business and continued success with Constructel Visabeira” in a move that can offer clients across the globe a more diversified service offering.

Constructel Visabeira CEO Nuno Marques welcomed Obelisk to the group.

“We place quality and efficiency at the centre of everything we do, and as we look toward new trends in the telecoms, power and technology sectors, our new partnership with Obelisk will complement our overarching vision to increasingly meet the global needs of our various international markets,” Marques said.

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Blathnaid O’Dea was a Careers reporter at Silicon Republic until 2024.

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