Strong revenue growth for rebranded EFESO Consulting
EFESO Consulting has gotten off to a flying start under its new brand. Two months after rebranding from Solving Efeso, the global management consultancy has seen its revenues grow by 12% to €16.5 million, compared to the same period last year.
With more than 480 consultants across 30+ offices in Europe, the US, South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, EFESO Consulting is one of the larger management and business consulting firms of the globe. The business advisory focuses mainly on services in the area of strategy, operations and human capital.
Between 2007 and just under two months ago, the consultancy operated under the Solving Efeso brand, following the merger between the French Solving and Italian Efeso in the summer of 2007. Eight years down the line, the firm’s management team decided to rebrand the firm, with EFESO Consulting unveiled as the new brand, formally adopted on 16 October this year. “With our new name EFESO Consulting, we are seeking to highlight one of our distinguishing features. Namely, our ability to put strategy into action, to coordinate complex global transformation programmes with all employees mobilised on behalf of our clients so that, in tandem with our teams, they take ownership of the dynamics of change and work towards the same objective,” said Filippo Mantegazza, who founded Efeso in 1979 and now serves as Chairman of EFESO Consulting, in a statement accompanying the rebranding communiqué.
In its first published results since the name change (the firm is stock listed on Alternext Paris), EFESO Consulting has re-confirmed the growth trajectory it first embarked on a few quarters ago. In Q3, EFESO Consulting achieved revenues of €16.5 million, an increase of 12.2% compared with the third quarter of 2014, while its revenue for the 2015 financial year to date now stand at €53.8 million, up 13.7% in comparison with the first nine months of last year.
Across the board results are mixed however. In Europe total fee income grew by 15% to €11.4 million, driven mainly by the acquisition of Empact in Belgium* (which added €1.5 million in revenue), and growth outside France, the firm’s home-base and largest market (accounts for roughly 20% of global revenue). In Spain, the strong growth in revenue (59%) relates to a large-scale project that began in the third quarter of 2014 and still is running, while following several quarters of decline, revenue in Italy has been stabilised on the back of several measures taken in late 2014.
Business grew strongly in the Middle East (83% growth), particularly in the Gulf states, but fell in Russia, and looking ahead Mantegazza says Russia will remain a challenging market due to the country’s falling attractiveness for foreign direct investment. Income in North America, which accounts for a 15% share of EFESO Consulting’s portfolio, contracted by 3% in comparison with Q3 of the previous year, partly due to fierce competitive environment, says Mantegazza, and the suspension of a large project.
For the months to come, the CEO says the firm is well positioned to maintain its growth momentum. “In light of the positive signs in the market and the continued growth in revenue over the third quarter of 2015 and the diversity of its growth drivers, both geographic and sectoral, the Group re-confirms its 2015 objective of outperforming the consultancy market and maintaining higher growth in operating profitability than in sales.”
Two weeks ago, another large French-origin consulting firm, Solucom, made the headlines in the consulting industry after it unveiled it is close to acquiring a large share of Kurt Salmon.
* Empact has since been rebranded as Efeso Consulting Belgium.
