LONDON, UK: Glantus Holdings, the provider of accounts payable automation and analytics solutions, has acquired Meridian Cost Benefit Limited for a total consideration of up to £3.03 million, a news release said.
Meridian Cost Benefit (MCB) is a provider of accounts payable recovery audits and specialist audits in telecom and utility contract compliance audits. Based in St Albans, UK, MCB provides recovery services across the United Kingdom. It has been trading since 2006 and has built up a considerable customer base.
For the year ended 31 December 2020, MCB reported turnover of £1.4m and pre-tax profits of £366k.
The acquisition offers the opportunity to cross-sell the individual technologies of both Glantus and MCB across the combined customer base, together with an acceleration of the Company’s organic growth within the existing customer base.
Meridian Cost Benefit has 44 UK customers, and brings the Glantus enterprise base to over 100. In addition, the Acquisition brings Glantus Holdings into the lucrative government and semi-state market which is in line with the strategic growth plans of the Glantus Executive Committee.
The ability to reference customers in this market will allow Glantus Holdings to replicate the offering across government agencies in other geographies and with an average annual spend per enterprise customer in excess of an estimated $500 million, it provides an excellent opportunity for Glantus to expand its target customer profile.
In addition, the Glantus platform will bring an integrated solution and capability to MCB customers, offering its product portfolio of Datashark, Statement Shark and Docushark.
Under the terms of the Acquisition, Glantus UK Ltd, the Company’s wholly owned UK subsidiary, has acquired MCB for a total consideration of up to £3.03m, comprised of an initial consideration of £2.1m in cash on completion, £0.53m nine months after completion and £0.40m fifteen months after completion.
Meridian Cost Benefit vendors have also entered into a subscription agreement with the Company to subscribe £0.5m of the initial cash consideration received under the Acquisition in return for 581,395 new ordinary shares of €0.001 each in the Company.
The Subscription Shares are subject to a lock-period ending on the date of publication of the Company’s annual accounts for the financial year ending 31 December 2021 and to an orderly marketing arrangement for a further period of 12 months thereafter.
The cash consideration under the Acquisition is being funded through the Company’s existing cash resources.
Maurice Healy, CEO of Glantus, said: “We are delighted to have the MCB team join Glantus. This acquisition further strengthens the strategy we outlined at the time of the IPO.
We welcome the wealth of experience the MCB team brings to Glantus EMEA. As we continue to shift the focus to subscription revenue the acquisition of MCB along with recent acquisitions of JPD and TIC consolidates our position in the AP market. This provides a greater opportunity to deploy our unique AP products driving our subscription revenue.
Peter Welch, Founder and CEO of Meridian Cost Benefit, said: “We recognize that customers are increasingly looking at automation and AI to drive further efficiencies in their financial processes. With Glantus, we now have the advanced technology platform and the team behind us to deliver additional services to our customers.”