Coutts buy gives US firm outplacement clout
Right, based in Philadelphia, bought Coutts from 3i in a $105m (€110m) deal in April. Its aim in the friendly acquisition was access to Coutts' extensive European and Japanese networks to fill in blanks in its geographic coverage.
Coutts, which had $92m in revenues last year, welcomed the independence from incubator 3i that the deal provided, together with the access to the US, where it had previously had little presence. More important, Coutts got access to new capital needed to upgrade its technological offering.
RightCoutts appears set to grow on its strong geographic foundation in the outplacement industry, especially as the jobs cull continues among investment banks. Financial services currently account for nearly 30% of RightCoutts' revenues with turnover looking to increase for the sector next year.
And, of course, the fourth quarter traditionally is prime time for job cuts, as companies look to make them before year-end, so they can charge-related expenses to the year that just passed and begin the next year afresh.
Jo Bond, deputy managing director for RightCoutts, has been charged with helping to integrate the two groups - something she is well qualified to do. She began her career at 3i in the early '80s as a human resources director before moving on to Coutts Consulting where she was head-hunted by Right Management in 1998 as a managing director.
Much of her task involves putting together Right's technology-based outplacement programme with Coutts' more hands-on approach. Bond says: "We believe passionately that 'high touch-high tech' provides individuals with a powerful combination of personal support through one-to-one consultations with their mentoring consultant and specialist coaching across a range of relevant topics, including interview techniques, negotiating skills, self-employment and dressing for success, together with full access to leading-edge technology and e-solutions to support their research and campaign effectiveness."
Right's customised outplacement programme gives clients access to a dedicated career coach from off-site. The consulting sessions are supplemented by the programme's web-based learning modules and a dedicated website that offers research tools and online job banks.
Most outplacement firms are making a significant technological investment in an effort to reduce their costs as customers exert downward pressure on fees industry-wide. Bond says that larger institutions expect far more these days for less and that financial institutions are in a good position to negotiate considering the level of business they are providing.
The firm currently derives 80% of its revenues from outplacement, with the remainder coming from its organisational consulting division. RightCoutts would prefer that number to be more evenly split and has implemented a five-year plan to create more balance in its turnover.
Bond says: "With the Coutts acquisition we have achieved one of our long-term goals of an equal balance in revenue contribution between our US and non-US operations. We had originally scheduled to achieve this by 2005. Another long-term goal is to have a 50:50 balance of revenue contribution between our career transition and organisational consulting operations."
RightCoutts plans to obtain full integration between the merged organisations by the end of the year. By May of next year the firm will drop Coutts from its name and adopt the Right moniker globally.
The firm is also looking forward to taking a place on the New York Stock Exchange after trading successfully on the Nasdaq for a number of years.
