Stratcorp Blended into Coffey

In Australia, Coffey International Limited is paying AUS $4.0m to acquire Stratcorp Consulting Pty Ltd, a boutique consultancy providing strategic advice for large sporting and leisure projects. Coffey will merge the firm into a new high-end consulting division.

Stratcorp's research services include customer satisfaction surveys, service quality audits, mystery shopping and competitor research. In addition to MR, it provides master planning, business cases, community consulting, lobbying, funding proposals and project delivery, with a focus on work for state governments, local councils and the private sector - including major sporting venues and teams - in Australia and New Zealand.

The $3.0m cash, $1.0m shares acquisition follows closely Coffey's buying of The Peron Group, a specialist in front-end strategy and transaction advice for major infrastructure projects, on 1 August. Coffey's MD Roger Olds says the firm will integrate the two recent buys with its strategic mining consulting business, Balance, to form a new business specialising in the high-end, professional advisory space, with a remit for aggressive growth. The new business will start with 36 staff including ten from Stratcorp.

Continues Olds: 'We're already seeing some success with Stratcorp working with other Coffey businesses to jointly submit government and council proposals. We see real value in being able to partner with clients from project conception to completion, while maintaining a best-of-breed, multi-specialist business model backed with strong internal processes to ensure confidentiality and probity of information.'

Stratcorp principal Chris Dare, who founded the company in 1996, said merging with Coffey was a great opportunity to rapidly develop business in Australia, and particularly overseas. 'The Coffey group's global presence and resources offers us the ability to grow rapidly and to deliver strategic services world-wide. At the same time, our trusted relationships with our clients will help us deliver work to other areas of Coffey'.

Coffey has a market capitalisation of around AUS $400 million and employs around 2,500 people in c.50 offices in Australia and overseas bases in the UAE, Indonesia, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, the USA, the Philippines, South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, the UK and New Zealand. Its home page is at www.coffey.com while Stratcorp's is at www.stratcorp.com.au.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.