April M&A blog: Busy M&A activity for B2B services

2. Tech investor Scalare Partners acquires national startup mentoring program the Australian Technologies Competition

Early-stage tech investor and advisory firm Scalare Partners has acquired the annual Australian Technologies Competition (ATC), which helps build promising tech companies for the world stage. The ATC has an alumni pool of 350 past winners, including telehealth platform Coviu, global agri-business Agri-Digital and ASX-listed cleantech company Calix.  Scalare Partners CEO Carolyn Breeze said the acquisition is part of their ongoing commitment to the technology sector. Scalare acquired the competition from Impact Tech Ventures (ITV). ITV founder Pat Mooney said Scalare is a great home for the competition as it evolves

3. GAP Accountants joins Nexia’s organisation in Melbourne

Operating out of the city’s central business district, Nexia’s Melbourne practice offers its clients a full range of accounting, tax, and business advisory services, as well as support with wealth management. The addition of GAP Accountants adds two partners and eight staff to Nexia’s headcount, and deepens its capabilities in tax, financial planning, corporate and business advisory, and self-managed super fund services. The move will see the two directors of GAP Accountants, Doug Abrahams and Eva Bonner, appointed as partner at Nexia. Abrahams founded the boutique in 2004 following a career at PKF, while Bonner joined the team around a decade ago and climbed the ranks to director level. The Australian wing of Nexia is part of Nexia International, which has 34,500 staff worldwide.

4. Australian consultancy Elabor8 joins global player Cprime

Australian business consultancy Elabor8 has been picked up by US-headquartered multinational Agile and tech consultancy Cprime, marking the latter’s entry into the Asia Pacific via a team of 140 professionals. The deal follows Elabor8’s recent push to expand internationally, and will allow both parties to increase their presence and capabilities across the region to better serve global clients. Founded by Velonis in Melbourne in 2009 alongside directors Nam Huynh and Andrew Blain, Elabor8 quickly established itself in the market with six consecutive appearances on the Australian Financial Review’s Fast 100 list of the nation’s fastest growing start-ups. Since its establishment, the firm has grown to include further Australian offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra, alongside international outlets in the UK, Asia and New Zealand. An agile expert, Elabor8 works in the areas of organisational design, innovation, and digital transformations, with a client roster including many of Australia’s most prominent organisations, including Woolworths, Qantas, Officeworks, Transport for NSW, and the University of Melbourne. With Velonis and Huynh remaining at the helm as CEO and COO, the firm will continue to serve its current clients under the Elabor8 banner.

5. Connecting Plots has announced the appointment of Matt Geersen and John Gault as creative partners, following the acquisition of their independent creative agency Two G’s

Two G’s became part of Connecting Plots on Tuesday 11 April, with their current clients including Amazon Prime Video, Mad Mex and Penguin Books Australia. Gault and Geersen are both highly awarded integrated creative directors with more than 15 years experience who both live and breathe brand, digital and social worlds to create culture-shaping, made-for-channel creative. The pair have extensive experience at both traditional and digital-centric agencies including VML where they were paired together to creatively lead the agency’s major accounts. Between them they have worked with clients from all categories, including McDonald’s, Toyota and Coca-Cola and won all the major awards – with highlights including multiple Cannes Lions and golds at One Show.

6. Anacacia’s RP Infrastructure picks up Ranbury in bolt-on deal

Anacacia Capital’s construction and infrastructure advisory business RP Infrastructure has acquired Queensland-focused peer Ranbury, which services building, transport, resources and utilities sector. Anacacia Capital-backed project management group RP Infrastructure’s jobs have included Sydney Opera House.   The combined businesses would have more than $100 million revenue and 300-plus employees across five offices on the eastern seaboard. Ranbury investors would join the merged entity, which would continue to be majority owned by the PE investor which bought into RP in October 2019. RP Infrastructure – once known as Root Partnerships – has been around since 1994 and has clients in 15 sectors, with plum jobs including working on the Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Airport, Australian War Memorial and Inland Rail. It has a two-pronged offering, starting with advisory (such as getting government approvals including funding) and execution (such as project management) down the line. Ranbury, which was incorporated in 1996, gives RP Infrastructure an immediate foothold in Queensland. There are no redundancies from the deal.

7. Diversis-backed RFI Global acquires DBM’s Atlas division, to create Australia’s most comprehensive financial services customer data set

RFI Global, the global leader in data and insights for financial services, today announced that it has acquired DBM Atlas, a leading Australian financial services data and insights provider from the Illuminera Group.  This exciting acquisition will further enhance RFI’s unique data and insights proposition by bringing together the two most comprehensive financial service customer data sets in Australia. Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, DBM is one of Australia’s leading specialist research and insights consultancies. Founded in 1992 by Dhruba Gupta, DBM boasts a rich record of experience and expertise used to benchmark the performance of Australia’s most successful organisations. . RFI Global was founded in Sydney in 2006 to provide financial intelligence for the Australian financial services market and has since grown into a global company serving 49 markets. Backed by its investment partners, Diversis Capital, RFI Global is on an exponential growth trajectory, having recently established a local presence in New York, Dubai, Paris and San Francisco to add to its existing presence in London, Sydney, Singapore, and Toronto. DBM Social Research and 3arc will remain with the Illuminera Group with DBM Social re-branded as 3arc Social.

8. Colliers has acquired a controlling interest in the Greenstone Group, a leading project management and property advisory firm in New Zealand.

The Greenstone Group’s senior leadership team will remain significant shareholders of the business under Colliers’ unique partnership model. The business will rebrand as ’Colliers Project Leaders‘ and integrate into Colliers’ market-leading New Zealand operations. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 2000, Greenstone Group offers project management and property advisory services to a diverse range of end-markets, including the commercial, industrial, retail, residential, education, and infrastructure sectors. Greenstone Group’s professional services are delivered by more than 55 professionals across four offices in New Zealand.

9. Xero’s WorkflowMax to reincarnate under BlueRock’s wings

Acquired over a decade, WorkflowMax is a project management solution that helps small businesses and accountants run their operations in the cloud. key functionalities include customer relationship management, time tracking, planning, and invoicing. Despite being used by more than 10,000 businesses, in mid-March Xero announced that WorkflowMax will no longer be available from 26 June 2024. The firm has decided to focus its efforts towards the further development Xero Practice Manager. While the WorkflowMax product is being ushered to the great recycle bin the in sky, the name will live on. BlueRock, a business advisory firm, will take on the brand and has begun to build a product offering similar functionality to the previous incarnation. BlueRock’s newly developed solution, dubbed WorkflowMax by BlueRock, will be available by early 2024, allowing existing customers of Xero’s WorkflowMax product to sign up for the new solution before the Xero product is sunsetted.

10. WSP buys Australian mining sustainability firm Calibre for $275 million

Continuing a string of international environmental consulting acquisitions, global engineering giant WSP has purchased Western Australia-headquartered services provider Calibre for $275 million. Commenting on the deal, WSP chief executive officer and president Alexandre L’Heureux said the acquisition would strengthen the Montreal-headquartered firm’s ability to support mining clients with their decarbonisation agendas. Founded more than two decades ago, Calibre provides services across the full asset life cycle for blue-chip mining companies, with a focus on rail, infrastructure, rehabilitation, and renewable projects. The firm has approximately 800 professionals spread across offices in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and says that it has completed more than $30 billion worth of infrastructure projects. Calibre had earlier this year sold off its Built Environment business to another international engineering and consulting player, Egis (which also recently snapped up Omrania in the Middle East), while WSP has been going big in recent years to build up its sustainability offering – beginning with the $1.5 billion purchase of Golder in 2020 to create what was described as the world’s largest environmental consultancy within the built environment. That deal was followed by two more last year worth over $3 billion combined – the environment and infrastructure business of John Wood Group in the UK, and fellow UK-headquartered environmental consulting firm RPS Group, together adding more than 10,000 professionals and taking WSP’s earth & environment practice headcount to around 25,000 generating a third of its annual revenues. In Australia, the Calibre acquisition sees its headcount expand to beyond 6,000 professionals across the country.

11. Software Combined snaps up Last Yard

Enterprise software aggregator Software Combined has wrapped up its sixth acquisition in the form of Perth-based retail marketing automation vendor Last Yard. Acquired for an unknown sum, the acquisition is expected to speed up the delivery of Last Yard’s products, according to the vendor’s CEO, Chris Stoyles. Stefan Jansen, Software Combined’s chief revenue officer, said all of Last Yard’s staff is expected to make the transition under the new ownership, which amounts to roughly 39 employees and will retain its existing brand. The acquisition of Last Yard comes over nine months after Software Combined acquired another Perth business in the form of communications system provider Omnitronics back in July 2022. At the time, Hollander said that acquisition added a business-to-business (B2B) product to the aggregator in what he considered to be an important niche.

12. PKF integrates Buckley Richardson Partners into its network

Port Stephens based Buckley Richardson Partners has rebranded as PKF Port Stephens as of 1 April 2023. Founded in 2002, Buckley Richardson Partners has been providing accounting and advisory services to businesses operating in the Port Stephens region for over two decades. The firm specialises in accounting, taxation, financial advisory, and superannuation services to small to medium-sized businesses. Now merging into the PKF network, the firm will adopt the PKF Port Stephens brand, with the Buckley Richardson Partners brand retired from the scene. With over 90 partners and over 750 staff across Australia, PKF is one of the country’s ten largest accounting-origin professional services firms. PKF Port Stephens will be integrated into the wider PKF Sydney and Newcastle division, which has a headcount of around 250.