Local Firms Concur and Vaupell Holdings Each Announce Acquisitions
By Seattle Business Magazine June 7, 2011
As a chronicler of Washington business, we’re always pleased when local companies are on the buy side of a mergers and acquisitions deal. When a local company is sold, investors get a return on their investment that they can potentially reinvest. That’s good. But it’s even better when a local company is on the buy side, because it suggests that company has staying power. Such a company is more likely to be a source of employment growth over the long term.
Today we are happy to report on at least two acquisitions by local companies. Concur, a Redmond-based provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions, announced it has agreed to acquire GlobalExpense, a London-based market leader in Web-based, end-to-end expense management solutions, for 12 million. The acquisition merges together two complementary solutions that will extend better travel and expense management processes across new geographies and markets, including the small and medium business segment.
Concur says the acquisition will allow it to leverage GlobalExpenses strengths in receipt validation and its extensive knowledge of UK tax legislation, while GlobalExpense will offer Concur’s customers greater insight and control into employee spending.
Separately, Vaupell Holdings, Inc. (Vaupell), a Seattle-based leader in the supply of sophisticated plastics products and assemblies to the aerospace, defense, medical and commercial markets, announced today that it has acquired Russell Plastics Technology Company, Inc. (Russell), a supplier of composite plastics products and assemblies serving primarily the aerospace and military markets.
The acquisition reaffirms our region’s growing strength in the composite sector as described in our January cover story.
The purchase of New York-based Russell Plastics further expands the line of products and services Vaupell offers to their customers with the addition of composite manufacturing capabilities and provides Vaupell expanded access to the rotorcraft and military markets.
This acquisition is the culmination of a focused initiative to pursue a strategic combination with a technical supplier of composite plastics products, said Joe Jahn, CEO of Vaupell. We see growing demand for light-weight, structurally tough composite parts in all of our market segments, especially in aerospace and defense. We believe this acquisition will allow us to better support our customers on a global basis.