Marlowe Pays £25m To Acquire EssentialSkillz

/ 21st October 2021 /

AIM-listed Marlowe plc has acquired Galway venture EssentialSkillz for an outlay of £25 million

Founded in 2001, EssentialSkillz is a leading provider of eLearning course and compliance software.

Parent company Navred Ltd is owned by Malta residents Tony Dervan (60%) and Michelle Dervan (40%).

Operating company RiskWize Ltd, employing 30 people, paid a dividend of €2m to its two owners in 2019. Net profit for 2020 was €1.5m, up from €330,000 the previous year.

According to the EssentialSkillz website, husband and wife team Tony and Michelle Dervan had worked on multi-million dollar eLearning projects for Microsoft Interactive Press, and Michelle was an experienced classroom teacher. Based in Galway, EssentialSkillz also has customer-facing offices in Chester (UK) and Delaware (USA).

“As good as we believe our product to be, it is our after-sales support that differentiates us in the market,” says the firm.

The EssentialSkillz compliance and training platform enables organisations to engage their employees in all compliance areas, and there are over 70 customisable eLearning courses that are focused on health & safety, business protection and wellbeing.

Marlowe chief executive Alex Dacre commented: "EssentialSkillz is a leading compliance SaaS and eLearning business of scale, and its merger with our new WorkNest platform further strengthens our one-stop-shop regulatory compliance offering for our clients.”

EssentialSkillz has developed three WorkWize subscription packages, with varying features, in order to meet the needs of organisations, ranging from small businesses to large corporations.

EssentialSkillz has over 500 SME customers and annual turnover of c.£4.5m. Marlowe says adjusted EBITDA is £2.2m, on a run rate basis, with SaaS subscription income accounting for >95% of total revenues. EssentialSkillz had net assets of c.£2.3m as at 31 December 2020.

To fund the acquisition, Marlowe has effected a £50m before expenses Placing of 5.5m shares, which was significantly oversubscribed. The Placing price was 907p per share.