Ankura acquires two business units from Navigant for $470 million
Leading business advisory Ankura Consulting is set to acquire the Disputes, Forensics and Legal Technology practice and the Transaction Advisory Services practice of Navigant Consulting. The huge consulting industry deal is valued at almost half a billion dollars and is the latest in a chain of acquisitions made by the rapidly expanding Ankura.
Founded in 2014, Ankura Consulting has grown at breakneck pace in four years. That pace has accelerated since 2016, when the firm secured a strategic growth commitment package worth $100 million from private equity titan Madison Dearborn Partners. That enabled Ankura to expand its client offering from straight-up business advisory to encompass geopolitical risk, restructuring and litigation support, and forensic accounting and evaluation.
Earlier this year the DC-based consultancy snapped up Nashville’s c3/consulting for an undisclosed fee. That brought Ankura’s professional headcount to 575 consultants working from 14 offices worldwide. If the agreed deal to acquire portions of Navigant Consulting – a transformation specialist with clients in the healthcare, energy, and financial services sectors – Ankura will lead a consultancy with 1,400 employees across 34 offices.
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2018 and create, in the words of Ankura CEO Roger Carlile, a “unique global business advisory firm” commanding more than $500 million in revenues. Acquiring Navigant’s Disputes, Forensics, and Legal Technology (DLFT) practice as well as the Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) practice will cost $470 million, of which Navigant is projected to realize $370 million in cash assets.
“Bringing Navigant’s global DFLT and TAS businesses to Ankura represents a milestone opportunity to establish a global footprint, enhance our client offerings, deepen our relationships with our clients, and provide new and exciting opportunities for our people,” said Carlile.
Julie M. Howard, Navigant CEO, was equally enthusiastic. “By separating those businesses from Navigant’s management consulting and managed services businesses, we believe each organization will be advantageously positioned for growth and success in their respective markets,” she said in a press release.
Shorn of its DFLT and TAS practices, Navigant – which recently acquired life sciences specialist Quorum Consulting – will become a “highly concentrated” firm, said Howard, with an exclusive focus on healthcare, energy and financial services. Howard is a part of the Navigant fabric, becoming CEO in 2012 and COO in 2003.
“With a sharpened focus on our energy, financial services, and healthcare sectors, along with the capital to invest in scalable digital, data and analytics solutions, Navigant is poised to serve our clients even more effectively as they navigate the transformational changes driving their industries.”
“We are confident that concentrating our business in higher-growth markets, augmented by scalable solutions and enhanced revenue visibility, will enable us to deliver consistent growth and drive greater long-term value for our shareholders,” she added.
Ankura is set to leverage the sharp knowledge and experience latent in its new DFLT and TAS practices to expand its differentiated consulting model – based on helping professionals apply their expertise to help their own clients. The firm offers tailored solutions by assembling unique combinations of experts who collaborate to overcome a given challenge or execute a new strategy.
“Ankura was founded to create a different kind of business advisory firm based on collaboration and innovation, and our success and growth is a testament to our approach,” said Carlile. “Navigant’s DFLT and TAS professionals are leading experts in their fields who share these same beliefs, and we are excited to welcome our new colleagues to our growing platform.”
