May 14, 2021 – Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting announces today that it has signed and completed an agreement to acquire Vanguard Software Corporation (Vanguard Software), a global provider of cloud-based integrated business planning (IBP) solutions for approximately $110 million in cash. The acquisition offers an opportunity to extend the award-winning CCH Tagetik financial performance management platform into sales and operations planning, including supply chain planning and predictive analytics.
Vanguard Software serves companies of all sizes across every major industry in more than 60 countries, helping them to improve forecasting, reduce overstocks, optimize inventory distribution, and reduce supply chain costs. Vanguard Predictive Planning solutions use artificial intelligence, algorithmic modeling, process automation, and a collaboration hub to enable companies to optimize and automate end-to-end supply chain planning. In 2021, the Vanguard Predictive Planning™ platform was ranked as a leader in Supply Chain Planning by Nucleus Research and received an honorable mention from Gartner.
Vanguard Software revenues derive from subscription-based cloud software (averaging approximately 55% of total revenues in recent years) and software-related professional implementation and consulting services. The company recorded total revenues of $7.2 million in 2020 (un-audited). While the COVID-19 pandemic caused a contraction in services last year, recurring cloud software revenues grew 33% organically in 2020. A majority of revenue is from North America. We expect the acquisition to achieve a return on invested capital above our after-tax weighted average cost of capital of 8% within 3 to 5 years. The impact on Wolters Kluwer adjusted net profit is immaterial. Founded in 1995, Vanguard Software is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, and has approximately 40 employees.
“Extending the CCH Tagetik corporate performance management solutions with Vanguard’s expertise in sales and operations planning including supply chain management and predictive analytics is a natural next move for us. The responsibilities of the Office of the CFO increasingly include sales and operational planning and the ability to leverage real-time insights for complex decision making. The combination of Vanguard Software and CCH Tagetik solutions allows us to support our enterprise customers as they seek to implement integrated planning environments”, said Karen Abramson, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting.
“We are excited that Vanguard is now a part of Wolters Kluwer,” said Rob Suggs, CEO of Vanguard who will shift into a consulting role to support the integration. “Wolters Kluwer and Vanguard share a customer-focused approach in providing innovative, cloud-based solutions that enable organizations to be more accurate, efficient, and productive in how they plan and forecast across key areas of operations. ”