Blick Rothenberg’s parent company, CogitalGroup, the international business services group focused on entrepreneurial and private businesses, has published an update on progress since launch two years ago alongside the publication of its annual review, Blue 2018.
Highlights
- In its second year, CogitalGroup has established itself as a leading provider of business services to entrepreneurial and private companies in the UK and Nordics
- Rapid expansion in core UK and Nordic markets with over 90,000 clients, and 6,000 employees operating from 177 offices in seven countries
- Increasingly diversified offering clients a wide range of critical business support, BPO and related advisory services
- Continuing to deliver on the growth strategy with the largest acquisition since the launch of the Group, Wilkins Kennedy, bringing significant strength in the key south of England markets
- Strong financial performance with annualised revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation now at £453m and £68m, 64% ahead of the levels at launch in December 2016
John Connolly, Executive chairman, commented:
“In our first two years CogitalGroup has established itself as a business of size and scale, with client focus at the centre of everything we do. Having rapidly expanded through strategic acquisitions within the UK and Nordic markets, our clear focus is on continued organic growth and selected, smart M&A.
A key differentiator for CogitalGroup is our technology and the benefits this brings to our clients. CoZone, our unique cloud-based portal which offers the latest in smart technology and digitalisation to our clients is embedded in our Nordic businesses. A major focus in the coming year will be the roll out of CoZone across our UK operations establishing CogitalGroup’s position as the leading technology driven business services group serving our chosen market segment.’
Executive chairman’s statement
Cogital is a young business, launched just two years ago in December 2016. In 2018 we have made good progress building our business. Our annualised revenues are now above £450m with 50% generated in the Nordic markets and 50% generated in the UK markets. Our medium-term goal is to expand our business profitably with high organic growth enhanced by selected, smart acquisitions and mergers. Our goal: to be strongly positioned in the UK, wider European markets and North America.
Technology will be a major contributor to our differentiation. Our technology and digitalisation is already contributing value-added services to our clients. Smart technology, increasingly including robotics will continue to be right at the heart of our business activity supported by significant investment. A major development this year has been the enhancement and rebranding of our Nordic customer portal as CoZone and recently commencing the launch of the portal into UK markets. CoZone, a cloud-based portal was developed in our group. Embedding the portal more widely across the group is a critical priority in the period ahead.
An extremely valuable feature of our group is our nearshoring capability. Today, in four centres in Romania we have over 700 people. At present our nearshoring activity is primarily supporting our Nordic businesses. As we go forward we will be increasing further the nearshore production and extending the focus of this automated support across the group.
Achieving high organic growth is a key element of our strategy. Our increasing scale is bringing a wider range of skills into the business. We are exploiting these skills to bring more value-added services to our client base and establishing industry and service line verticals to support client capture.
Turning to mergers and acquisitions. During 2018, 13 new acquisitions have brought over 1200 great people to our team including specialists in new service areas. In the second half of 2017 Campbell Dallas joined CogitalGroup, providing a presence of scale in the Scottish markets. In September this year we completed our largest acquisition since launch with Wilkins Kennedy joining our group. Wilkins Kennedy brings our group significant strength in the key south of England markets: over 700 people in 18 offices with revenues of £55m.
Vital to our success is our people – over 6,000 highly talented and motivated people working across seven countries and serving over 90,000 clients. Cogital people are contributing daily to building this special business. Thank you to all of you and I look forward to working with you in the year ahead.
John P Connolly,
Executive chairman
Please click here to read CogitalGroup’s annual review, Blue 2018, in full.
