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The consulting arm of electrical manufacturing firm Hitachi has moved into the European services and solutions market with the acquisition of UK-based IT consulting firm Impact Plus.
Hitachi Consulting announced yesterday that it had closed the deal with Impact Plus after nine months of discussions. The deal constitutes the firm’s first acquisition in Europe.
All staff, including the Hitachi Consulting London team, will be based in Impact Plus’s Teddington office. Impact Plus announced that everyone would maintain his or her job except co-founder Andy Miller, who decided to retire before the Hitachi deal was struck.
"We actually sought out Impact Plus almost a year ago, we had always envisioned an acquisition in the UK; our focus has been financial services and public sector,” Jim Schuchard, European managing vice president at Hitachi Consulting told The Register. "We thought about different opportunities in the market and we really felt like Impact Plus was a very good fit."
David Bailey, co-founder and joint managing director of Impact Plus added: "What we were looking for was the ability to break through to the next level, primarily in terms of credibility to go for larger deals, and what we didn’t have was either the brand strength or financial clout to be able do that. When Hitachi came knocking on our door, they’ve obviously got both of those."
Hitachi Consulting has said that it wants to expand the number of consultants in Europe to around 500 by the end of 2010 and will be recruiting immediately. It will also be looking to make one acquisition each year in order to strengthen its position in Europe.
