- Based in the Irish city of Cork, CoreHR provides a fully integrated, cloud-based suite of HR and payroll products to enterprise and mid-market businesses in the UK and Ireland
- Serving over a million users across 270 customers, its offering includes people management, payroll, workforce management, recruitment, talent management and on-the-job learning solutions
- Customers include public and private organisations across the British and Irish markets, such as Cineworld, JD Sports and the University of Oxford
- In the years immediately preceding the transaction, CoreHR successfully transitioned its entire customer base from legacy on-premise contracts (with several product versions supported) to a SaaS model while simultaneously realising strong organic growth
- Founded in 1991 and backed by TA Associates and Hg, The Access Group is a leading vendor of mission-critical business software in the UK, primarily serving SME and mid-market organisations
- Access offers a unified platform with a range of enterprise software solutions, in which finance and HR applications are integrated with industry-specific solutions, all serving key verticals including the recruitment, hospitality, manufacturing, distribution, health & social care, not-for-profit and education sectors
- With 12 acquisitions in the past 3 years, Access has built a highly effective M&A platform, with a track record of realising significant value through cross-selling, operational enhancements and product integration
- The combination creates a leading player in HCM in the UK and Ireland, with revenues from this sector in excess of £100m
- The rationale is underpinned by the following thesis:
- The retention of Dean Forbes (CoreHR CEO) to lead and expand the combined HCM division, renamed Access People, which will benefit from considerably increased scale in its main markets
- Integrate CoreHR into Access’ suite of products
- Cross-selling of the Access Workspace solutions (particularly digital learning, employee screening and pay on demand) to the CoreHR customer base
- Continued focus on winning new logos in both mid-market and enterprise segments through the enlarged end-to-end HCM offering
- Leveraging Access’ offshore delivery platform to improve margins
- The newly formed Access People Division plans to double revenue to £200m by 2024, enabled by the larger market potential following this transaction as it now serves customers with 10 to 10,000+ employees
- Arma acted as exclusive financial advisor to CoreHR in securing a successful sale to The Access Group
- Arma supported CoreHR on a variety of activities, including the strategic positioning of the business and the preparation of a detailed financial model and marketing materials
- Arma helped the Board in navigating inbound interest from several strategic buyers and provided the access to key decision-makers that allowed CoreHR to run a highly targeted and efficient set of discussions
- Arma provided further support through the coordination of the diligence process, provision of tactical advice to the Board and help with the negotiation of key transaction terms
- This transaction underscores Arma Partners’ ability to deliver highly successful outcomes for companies transitioning to a SaaS model and reinforces the firm’s strong track record in the payroll and HCM software sector