Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory announces today that it has signed an agreement to acquire CGE Risk Management Solutions B.V. (CGE), a leading provider of risk management software, including the industry-standard BowTieXP solution. The acquisition will extend Wolters Kluwer’s presence in the growing operational risk management software market.
CGE Risk Management Solutions serves risk experts in over 2,500 leading corporations and public entities worldwide who operate in high-risk and asset-intensive industries, including oil & gas, energy, aviation, mining, transportation, utilities, chemicals, manufacturing, and healthcare. CGE’s best-known product is the industry-standard BowTieXP, a barrier-based risk management solution for visual and qualitative risk assessment that can be used to analyze and communicate how high-risk scenarios around specific hazards develop. This solution allows the creation of bowtie diagrams to visualize risks, provide an overview of multiple plausible incident scenarios, and show what barriers organizations have in place to control these scenarios.
CGE will become part of Wolters Kluwer’s Environmental, Health & Safety and Operational Risk Management (EHS/ORM) software group, which also includes Enablon and eVision. The combined offerings will enable customers to improve their EHS, ORM, and risk performance and to conduct more responsible, productive, and safe operations.
CGE recorded revenues of €5 million in 2018, mainly from software and services. Wolters Kluwer expects the acquisition to achieve a return on invested capital (ROIC) above the group’s after tax weighted average cost of capital (8%) within three to five years of completion. The transaction is expected to have a positive but immaterial impact on adjusted earnings in its first full year. CGE was founded in 2004 and has approximately 30 employees, with headquarters in The Netherlands. CGE has a global customer base with the majority of customers in Europe, North America, and Australia.
“The addition of CGE Risk Management Solutions to our Enablon and eVision offerings will further the value Wolters Kluwer delivers to corporations in supporting their most critical workflows, and advances our leadership in the market,” said Stacey Caywood, CEO, Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory.
“We are very excited by the opportunity to join Wolters Kluwer,” said Arjan Verboom, Jeroen van Dommelen and Arjan Zipp, CGE executive leaders. “By combining forces, we can help deliver more value to our customers as we integrate BowTieXP into Wolters Kluwer’s broader EHS/ORM offering and create a comprehensive, dynamic barrier-based risk management solution.”
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020.
