We’ve developed a tool kit of M&A support or as I prefer to say, a menu of M&A support which really helps businesses we back increase the volume and the value of the acquisitions they do.
We can support businesses whether it’s a team looking to do their first acquisition and outsource everything to us or an experienced team looking to build an M&A function in-house, so they can keep doing acquisitions again and again whether we’re there to support them or not.
To support our portfolio companies realise their M&A ambitions, we have invested in a multilingual team and dedicated resource within ECI. But the thing I’m most excited about at the moment is the launch of our Amplifind™360 platform. This is an extension of our existing AI powered origination tool that we use in our own deal origination
but here we designed it with our portfolio user in mind. M&A is a great value lever.
We believe it’s about adding value strategically so not just poundnote value on the balance sheet so it might be geographic one in four acquisitions that our portfolio
have made across Fund 10 and Fund 11 have been international. Or it could be about acquiring new product, new capability or adding scale which allows you to better serve your customers. For instance in Moneypenny, the team knew there was a huge opportunity in the US but their current office in Charleston South Carolina was not the right location for them to expand from. So the resulting four acquisitions and some great organic growth that we’ve helped them with has taken revenues in the US to over 30% of the business.
M&A is a great way of fuelling growth whether that’s by sort of cross-sell and up-sell to your customers through new capability or indeed through some geographic expansion. We take a strategic approach and offer hands on end-to-end support where we’re working collaboratively with the management teams at every stage of the M&A journey right through from sourcing to integration and for us success is not only defined by M&A during our hold period but if we’ve done our job right then the portfolio company is set up for future success.
