Hyder agrees to 288 mln sterling Arcadis takeover offer

LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Hyder Consulting (LSE: HYC.L - news) , the British engineering firm at the centre of a bidding war, said it was recommending a raised offer from Dutch firm Arcadis and abandoning a deal with Japan's Nippon Koei .

Hyder said on Thursday it had agreed a cash offer of 730 pence per share from engineering group Arcadis (Other OTC: ARCAY - news) which valued the British company at 288 million pounds ($477.8 million).

Hyder is a design and engineering consultancy which has worked on structures including Sydney Harbour Bridge and the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa, in Dubai.

Arcadis approached Hyder in July with a proposal worth 650 pence per share. Nippon Koei then made an offer at 680 pence per share.

Hyder said it had now withdrawn its earlier recommendation of the Japanese offer.

The Dutch group said it had already acquired 15.6 percent of Hyder's shares at the higher offer price, which represented a premium of 57.4 percent to the volume weighted average price of Hyder shares during the three months to July 30, 2014. (1 US dollar = 0.6028 British pound) (Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by David Clarke)