May 21: 9 M&A deals in Consulting & IT, including 2 from Accenture

2. CBRE Group Inc. acquires leading Australian Infrastructure and development services firm

CBRE Group, Inc. announced that it has acquired Thelem Consulting Pty Ltd, a leading Australian infrastructure and development services firm. The acquisition significantly strengthens CBRE’s position as a leading provider of strategy, planning and delivery services for major infrastructure and development projects across Australia. Thelem provides development planning & feasibility services, design management, construction planning, contract, commercial and strategic procurement services. The company’s roster of government and private sector projects include the new Sydney Fish Market, Quay Quarter Precinct, the Waterloo Redevelopment Project, Barangaroo, Sydney Metro, White Bay Power Station, the Parramatta North Program, Parramatta Light Rail and Cairns Convention Centre Redevelopment. Thelem’s team of more than 40 professionals in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane will join CBRE’s existing Project Management group, which now consists of more than 165 professionals in Australia who have broad and deep capabilities to serve corporate occupiers, property owners and developers.

3. Canstar Group acquires fellow financial comparison site RateCity

Australian financial comparison site, Canstar, has announced the acquisition of fellow comparison service RateCity. This is the Canstar Group’s first acquisition, the company looking to bolster its capabilities, increasing investment in technology and data. The purchase comes as Canstar looks to “leverage RateCity’s technology to improve customer engagement and integration,” according to a statement released. Canstar’s managing director and CEO, Andrew Spicer said, adding RateCity to the Canstar Group “shows our commitment to being the leading digital intermediary in personal finance”. Both brands will continue to operate separately, while leveraging shared learnings across provider integrations, technology platforms and data. As a result, Nine has fully disposed of its 50% stake in RateCity. The terms of the transaction are confidential.

4. Simon Ryan’s RyanCap announces strategic investment in EMT Partners

Digital-first communications company RyanCap has announced new strategic investment in EMT Partners. EMT Partners is an entertainment, media, sport, and technology law and advisory firm, and RyanCap’s new strategic partnership aims to bring together the talent from both businesses to deliver results from clients. EMT Partners was founded by Trent Blacket and CEO Peter Davey, with the business chaired by Brent Chenoweth. It offers both legal and non-legal expertise, an ability to invest in and alongside clients, with strength in intellectual property, celebrity and talent, media and media rights, sports and sponsorship, music and entertainment, and film and television. RyanCap CEO, Simon Ryan, said EMT’s media, tech and legal capability meant the two businesses were strategically aligned for future growth.

5. Altman Solon acquires Australian TMT strategy consulting firm Venture Consulting

Altman Solon, a global strategy consulting firm focused exclusively on Telecommunications, Media, and Technology (TMT), today announces its acquisition of Venture Consulting, the TMT specialist consulting firm in Australia and New Zealand. Venture Consulting will start operating as part of Altman Solon in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) under the leadership of two of the region’s most experienced and well-respected TMT advisors: Justin Jameson, founder of Venture Consulting, and David Bornstein, prior a leader of Oliver Wyman’s ANZ Communications, Media, and Technology practice. As part of the acquisition, all of Venture Consulting’s employees will join Altman Solon. With the announcement, Altman Solon now has 11 offices worldwide, including a new office in Singapore which opened earlier this year. The new Sydney and Singapore offices now serve as dual Asia Pacific (APAC) hubs for the region’s growing demand for clear, rapid, and tailor-made solutions for companies and investors active in TMT sectors.

6. Japanese consultancy NRI buys software testing firm Planit

Australian software testing company Planit Testing has been picked up by Japanese consultancy Nomura Research Institute in a deal reported to be worth $300 million. The Australian arm of Japanese management consultancy and IT provider Nomura Research Institute (NRI) has purchased local software quality assurance and testing firm Planit Testing for an undisclosed sum. While only publicly announced this week, reports from March suggest a $300 million price-tag, with private equity firm The Growth Fund having been preparing Planit for sale since the middle of last year. Established in Sydney through a management buy-out in 1997 – with The Growth Fund becoming a substantial shareholder in 2015 – Planit has since grown to a team of 1,500 consultants spread across 12 offices in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and India.

7. KKR acquires majority stake in sustainability giant ERM

Investment firm KKR has won the bid to become the majority shareholder of ERM – the world’s largest consultancy focused exclusively on sustainability. Established locally in 1994, ERM has seven Australian offices. Founded in 1971 and with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Newcastle and Canberra among 160 worldwide, ERM is the world’s largest pure-play sustainability consultancy. KKR will acquire its majority stake from present owners OMERS Private Equity and Alberta Investment Management. According to the parties, the long-term investment will be focused on further growing the 50-year old consultancy, which itself has already made a trio of acquisitions so far this year; Dutch sustainability consultancy Sustainalize and UK media industry safety firm First Option Safety Group last month, along with renewable energy advisory Arcus in January. Last year, it also picked up energy & climate change consultancy M.J. Bradley & Associates in the US.

8. Australian Strategy Partners teams up with OC&C Strategy Consultants

Within months of launching, Australian Strategy Partners has entered into a strategic partnership with OC&C Strategy Consultants – which bills itself as one of the largest pure-play strategic consultancies in the world. Australian Strategy Partners was founded earlier this year by Jeremy Barker, Maurice Violani and Mark Blackwell, who previously all worked at EY-Parthenon, EY’s strategy consulting division (and served Kearney earlier in their careers). The Sydney-based consultancy sees a new pure-play strategy firm enter the market at a time when most niche firms have been absorbed by larger counterparts, and when large strategy consulting firms have branched out into other fields including digital, design thinking cost transformation, restructuring and more.

9. Accenture Acquires Industrie&Co to Help Australian Clients Maximise Cloud First Investments and Transform into Digital Businesses

Accenture has acquired Industrie&Co, a technology consultancy that designs and creates cloud native solutions for enterprises and “born in the cloud” fast emerging companies. The acquisition expands Accenture’s Cloud First capabilities in delivering cloud native services for clients, particularly within financial services, as they increasingly transform into digital businesses and build new digital products and services. Terms of the transaction are not being disclosed. Founded in 2007, and headquartered in Sydney, with offices in Melbourne, Hong Kong and Singapore, Industrie&Co brings to Accenture a deep heritage in cloud infrastructure engineering, offering organisations a comprehensive service suite encompassing capabilities across strategy, design and delivery of cloud products and platforms.