Integration specialists recruit ex-ANZ banker
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The hope is that Hattingh, who has worked at banks including Hill Samuel, Daiwa and NatWest Markets, will boost the firm's burgeoning client list.
John Sunderland, Integrum's founding partner, says of Hattingh: "He brings with him a wealth of contacts and experience, which will help us to develop further our growing business with financial institutions."
Integrum, with six partners, has seen its client list double in the past year as corporates realise that the way they manage staff through a merger can be just as important as strategic decisions. Ben de Haldevang, a partner at Integrum, says: "That's more and more on people's minds."
Integrum has added UK bank HBOS to a client list that includes Merrill Lynch, which it helped with staff retention, and ING, which took advice on the integration of its UK corporate broking unit Charterhouse Securities.
The firm is tiny compared to consulting giants like McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), but it is ambitious. With just one office in London, it now has staff working on a project in Germany. De Haldevang says: "We're gearing up to having a more international capability."
Hattingh will add an international touch. He has worked on all five continents and at NatWest was responsible for centres including New York, Singapore and Madrid.
He may also help win over the sceptical audience of investment bankers that Integrum faces. They are not easy targets for the firm to pitch to, as Integrum falls between human resources consultancies likeTowers Perrin and strategic advisers like BCG.
One former Charterhouse corporate broker, interviewed by Integrum as part of its work for ING, is mystified as to how it reached its conclusions. "I don't think they paid much attention to what I said," he says.
Integrum aims to overcome such criticism by setting hard and soft targets that help determine its fees. For example, one of five objectives of the Charterhouse integration was the retention of 70 of the broking firm's 400 staff that ING considered important. Integrum was paid a project fee and received bonuses for meeting the target.
The firm typically starts work on a merger between its announcement and completion. Projects usually take from three to six months and are completed before the two companies move into the same premises. Some clients regard physical integration as the beginning, says de Haldevang, but Integrum thinks the work should be done by then.
"In our view, that's the end of the project," he says.::
