Sentio Partners has advised Leeds-based software company, Morgan Kai Ltd on its sale to Nottingham-headquartered Ideagen plc, in a £22.4m deal.
Founded originally in 1999 as an Audit Consulting Business, Morgan Kai has developed a leading Audit Management application MKinsight. Morgan Kai is a UK business based in Leeds with a subsidiary company Morgan Kai Group Inc which is based in Chicago. Morgan Kai employs 28 staff who will remain with the business. The current CEO and primary shareholder, Paul Gascoigne and his co-director Tanya Gascoigne will leave the business after a 3 month handover period.
Morgan Kai have successfully developed a number of vertical markets including Local Government, National Audit Offices, Engineering and Manufacturing, Banking and Finance, Oil and Gas, Energy and Healthcare. The customer base is global in nature with strong presence in USA (28%), and UK (23%) with the remaining 49% spread across Europe, Asia and Africa.
The combination of Pentana and Morgan Kai will provide a strong platform to continue the growth in this core market providing enhanced scale, market coverage and technical capability. The combined business will generate approximately £10m in revenue in the year to 30 April 2020 and represent the clear number 2 vendor in the Internal Audit Market which the board believe will provide an opportunity to further increase market share. Moreover, synergies of approximately £0.3m have been identified, these relate predominantly to IT infrastructure costs and marketing spend and will be realised within the year to April 2020.
David Hornsby, executive chairman of Ideagen, said: “Morgan Kai is an extremely valuable addition to the Group and is in line with our strategy of acquiring GRC business that have strong IP and growing recurring revenues. Internal audit has represented a core market for Ideagen since the acquisition of Pentana in 2013, the addition of MKinsight to our product portfolio will enhance our scale and capability and provide a strong platform for continued growth globally.”
Dave Irwin and Andy Miller advised Morgan Kai on the sale of the business.
