Ridgecrest Advisors’ Client Perficient Acquires ForwardThink
Acquisition Expands Financial Services Practice
St. Louis – February 11, 2014 – Ridgecrest Advisors announced today that its client, Perficient, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRFT), a leading information technology consulting firm serving Global 2000 and other large enterprise customers throughout North America, has acquired ForwardThink Group Inc. (“ForwardThink Group”), a $30 million annual services revenue management and technology consulting firm focused on the financial services industry.
Perficient’s current annualized revenues are now approaching $430 million, and the transaction is expected to be accretive to adjusted earnings per share immediately.
“We’re excited to add to our industry capabilities with the acquisition of a reputable and growing financial services consulting firm,” said Jeffrey Davis, Perficient’s chief executive officer and president. “With the addition of ForwardThink Group, Perficient has strengthened our ability to create even more powerful management and IT consulting solutions for our financial services customers. Furthermore, we’re excited to add another high-growth and well-run firm with excellent operating metrics to Perficient.”
“Financial services organizations are highly regulated while simultaneously challenged with rising customer expectations, emerging technologies and the need to improve operational efficiencies. There is a growing demand from our customers to evolve information technology systems and processes in order to improve business performance,” said Kathy Henely, Perficient’s chief operating officer. “With the addition of ForwardThink Group, Perficient can further help clients effectively address market changes associated with business processes, performance optimization and risk mitigation services.”
The acquisition of ForwardThink Group:
- Expands Perficient’s financial services vertical, deepening Perficient’s business process improvement, payments, finance transformation and risk management offerings;
- Grows Perficient’s presence in New York, a major hub for financial services organizations;
- Adds more than 100 consulting, technology, sales and support professionals; and
- Adds client relationships with leading financial services enterprise customers in the banking, wealth management, asset management, capital markets and insurance industries.
ForwardThink Group Chief Executive Officer Robert Shinbrot joins Perficient in a key leadership role.
“Perficient is well known for its consulting expertise across many technology platforms and many industries. We’re thrilled to join the Perficient team, combining our industry knowledge and experience to deliver high-value solutions to financial services organizations,” said Shinbrot.
The closing consideration paid in the transaction is approximately $46 million and includes approximately $30 million in cash and approximately $16 million worth of Perficient common stock (based on the average closing price of Perficient’s common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market for the 30 trading days immediately preceding the acquisition close per the terms of the acquisition agreement).
Randy Grigg, managing partner of Ridgecrest Advisors, advised Perficient on the transaction in his capacity as a registered investment banking agent of M&A Securities Group, Inc. “ForwardThink brings to Perficient an exciting combination of outstanding management consulting skills and deep industry domain expertise in the important financial services vertical,” said Grigg.
About Perficient
Perficient is a leading information technology consulting firm serving Global 2000 and enterprise customers throughout North America. Perficient’s professionals serve clients from a network of offices across North America and three offshore locations, in Eastern Europe, India, and China. Perficient helps clients use Internet-based technologies to improve productivity and competitiveness, strengthen relationships with customers, suppliers and partners, and reduce information technology costs. Perficient, traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, is a member of the Russell 2000® index and the S&P SmallCap 600 index. Perficient is an award-winning “Premier Level” IBM business partner, a Microsoft National Systems Integrator and Gold Certified Partner, an Oracle Platinum Partner, a Gold Salesforce.com Cloud Alliance Partner, a TeamTIBCO partner, and an EMC Select Services Team Partner. For more information, please visit www.perficient.com.
About ForwardThink Group
ForwardThink Group is a leading management and technology solution provider in the financial services industry, helping clients address today’s business and technology challenges while preparing for the challenges of tomorrow. ForwardThink Group works with firms in banking, wealth management, asset management, capital markets and insurance sub-verticals, providing them with a wide range of management and information technology consulting services. For more information, please visit www.forwardthinkgroup.com.
About Ridgecrest Advisors
Ridgecrest Advisors is an investment banking and business consulting firm dedicated to helping technology consulting firms dramatically increase enterprise value. Ridgecrest Advisors helps clients in four core areas:
1. Buy-side M&A advisory: We help technology consulting clients increase enterprise value by successfully executing transactions which fortify, extend or transform their businesses. We have run three of the most active acquisition programs in the sector over the last 15 years and bring deep insight into full lifecycle M&A efforts.
2. Sell-side M&A advisory: We help technology consulting clients achieve premium valuations with attractive deal structures through a process that emphasizes speed and risk mitigation. Our deep industry expertise, expansive relationships with the buyer community and unmatched understanding of the perspectives of acquiring firms provide a unique ability to execute optimal transactions.
3. Business consulting: Our Enterprise Value Optimization program helps technology consulting clients improve relative performance visibility, increase profit margins and reduce business risk. With our extensive experience from evaluating hundreds of consultancies while running acquisition programs, we bring unique insight into key performance indicator benchmarks and best practices of highly profitable firms.
4. Private placements: Our ability to successfully raise capital allows our technology consulting clients to build value through funded strategic investment and reduce personal financial risk by realizing partial liquidity on their ownership positions. We have extensive relationships with private equity and debt financing providers who have experience and/or interest in the technology consulting sector.
All services involving securities are offered through M&A Securities Group, Inc. (“MAS”), member FINRA/SiPC; 4151 North Mulberry Drive, Suite 252; Kansas City, MO 64116; 816.888.7920. MAS and Ridgecrest are not affiliated entities.
