Successful bolt-on acquisition with no distraction to core business
Our client is a successful cleaning and soft services provider who operates nationally, but after a strategic review by the CFO it was clear that a large proportion of their income was derived from three key regions in the UK and two clients.
They were therefore seeking to grow, not in terms of service diversification, but in terms of clients and geography so they could reduce their exposure.
Their COO worked closely with the CFO and ourselves to identify likely options and we were retained to support them over a course of a number of months, so that they could remain focused on their core business whilst we met with and vetted potential acquisitions.
From an initial longlist we identified a shortlist of three companies whom the COO and CFO met on a 1-1 basis for initial discussions. This quickly became one company, as the fit was strong and our client could see ongoing roles for a number of the management team; this would also help them expand geographically.
The potential target also had complementary skills, which our client was keen to deploy within their own organisation.
As a result of our support, we enabled our client to continue delivering a highly successful services operation to their customers whilst we helped them to identify an acquisition that offered both new geographic coverage and complementary skills.
This allowed them to successfully balance their portfolio and reduce their exposure.