Congratulations to Causeway Technologies for becoming the No. 1 software house in the UK Construction industry with the acquisition of Elstree Computing Ltd (ECL). According to Phil Brown, Causeway has achieved No. 1 position in three fronts, these being: headcount (circa 130), revenues (pro-forma £13m) and customers (over 2000). With this acquisition, the split in terms of acquisitions vs. organic growth is circa 50:50. When Phil and I met in early Jan 07, I learnt the revenue targets the company was trying to achieve. By the rate the company is growing, thanks to Phil Brown and Peter Nagle, it is hard to see how this target can be missed. I won’t be surprised if one or two further acquisitions are announced before end of this calendar year. That will truly be a remarkable achievement.
According to the press release, the acquisition creates the industry’s first end-to-end supply chain platform that helps manage every process from design to build to facilities management. ECL is a specialist supplier of cost advice and management software for cost consultants, and model based 3-D design software for infrastructure design professionals. According to Philip Brown, Causeway?s CEO comments:
?We are delighted to announce the acquisition of ECL. With their long history of supplying software and services to construction professionals, ECL?s solutions provide a highly complementary fit with our existing offerings to contractors and their supply chains. We now have 150 people in the Causeway family dedicated to creating the first end-to-end supply chain ?platform? for the construction process that will embrace all stakeholders?.
Charles Barber, Founder and Chairman of ECL comments:
“The combination with Causeway is good news for ECL and our customers. We?ve long felt that the leading software providers need to pool their respective innovations and energy to the betterment of the construction industry, and we are therefore very excited about the possibilities presented by the combination of Causeway and ECL?.
If Causeway is No. 1, where is Coins (Construction Industry Solutions Ltd)? And more specifically, what are they up to? Coins reported revenues of £11.7m in 2005 with 112 staff, declining from their highest in 2003 (£12.8m and 99 staff). Coins has clearly spread their business outside of the UK with notable presence in the USA. Their recent acquisitions include US based Shaker Computer and Management, Inc.
Lack of up to date publicly available detailed financial accounting makes the comparison more difficult!
References
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Causeway Technologies # 5 – Alfred McAlpine?s Supplier Roll Out Programme
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Causeway Technologies # 3 – Register for forthcoming trade shows
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2012 London Olympics – Accenture wins back-office contract – what about Document Exchange?
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Burns e-Commerce, Accountis, OB10 and Causeway get new facelifts in 2006