LONDON, UK: RWS Holdings plc announced the establishment of a presence in Africa through the acquisition of STComms Language Specialists Proprietary Limited (ST Communications), a Cape Town-based language services provider.
This marks a milestone for RWS, enabling clients to further their reach into the African market with locally-based talent and linguistic expertise across 40+ African languages and strengthens RWS’s position in rarer languages.
Founded in 2008, ST Communications has built a reputation for offering a wide range of professional language and linguistic solutions to African and international businesses.
Its team of seven project managers and quality assurance experts work with a large network of highly skilled linguistic professionals across 26 African countries. Its localisation services include translation, interpreting, software testing, subtitling and transcreation and it has been a significant supplier of African language services to RWS for many years.
The acquisition will be funded from RWS’s existing cash resources and is in line with the Group’s strategy to actively pursue acquisitions that have the potential to accelerate delivery of its medium-term plans.
Ian El-Mokadem, Chief Executive Officer of RWS, commented: “Africa is a continent that is of long-term strategic importance to our clients and, as one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world, it presents a significant challenge for language services. We have partnered with ST Communications for many years and this acquisition supports our long-term strategy to continually invest and pioneer in new capabilities and will enable our clients to deepen their relationships in fast-growing African markets.”