Education, learning and training software and services provider, Tribal Group, is to acquire International Graduate Insight Group Limited ("i-graduate"), an education benchmarking and student experience research business. Tribal will pay a total consideration of up to £7.5m.
i-graduate will sit within Tribal's Services business and be integrated into its existing financial benchmarking and analytic capabilities. In contrast with Tribal’s Technology business, the Services side of the organisation has been struggling with growth, margin and orders (see Tribal: Contrasting divisional performances). A tough economic environment is taking its toll, but in an interim statement issued last month, management pointed to “an encouraging level of opportunities” for next year. Certainly the i-graduate acquisition will provide opportunities for cross-sale between the two companies’ customer bases in the near-term. i-graduate’s founder and CEO will remain on board to help drive that as part of the integration process.