World-famous sculptures and paintings formed a backdrop as the West Coast office of HKA Americas officially launched its new name and global brand on April 25 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Downtown Los Angeles. After separating from Hill International in May 2107, HKA is now an independent construction consulting company.

“We have a 40-year legacy but we are a brand new company,” says Adam Winegard, a partner with HKA, who I met at the event. Winegard, who has the distinction of being one of the first non-lawyers to be the Chair of the LA Construction section of the LA County Bar, says HKA may have a new name, but their experience is renowned.

“If you look on ‘Who’s Who Legal’ we have the most number of experts noted around the world,” says Winegard, who has been with company for nine years. He says HKA has 31 employees selected around the world as being the “top experts in our business focused on construction disputes, dispute avoidance and construction advisory services.”

The HKA Western Region brand launch in Los Angeles was the final of more than a dozen worldwide brand launch celebration in each of the company’s major geographic operations including London, Dubai, Singapore, Sao Paulo and Philadelphia.

“California is now the world’s 6th largest economy and our western region has been one of HKA’smost successful operations,” said Renny Borhan, HKA Chief Executive Officer, who spoke at the event. “It was apropos that our final worldwide brand launch celebration was in the city of Los Angeles.”

Borhan said HKA is “probably working on about 90 percent of the world’s mega-projects in some capacity or another, so I think we offer our clients a good perspective as to how people in other countries and jurisdictions with different legal systems manage their risk and uncertainty on major projects.”

A couple of large California projects that HKA is currently working on include the nearly $80-billion High-Speed Rail and the $1.2- billion Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project in Long Beach.

HKA is the new global brand that unites the former Construction Claims & Consulting Group of Hill International and associated subsidiaries – Binnington Copeland & Associates; Cadogans; Hill-PCI Group; Knowles; and McLachlan Lister. The company was purchased last year for $147 million in cash by Bridgepoint Capital, an international private equity group headquartered in London.

“It has been a pretty seamless process of taking 900 some-odd people and 40-plus offices in every continent in the world and shifting over in relatively short notice to a free-standing company,” said Ken Baker, a partner with HKA, who also spoke at the gathering.