Huron Consulting Group Announces the Acquisition of Click Commerce
Expands Company's Higher Education Research Technology Footprint
CHICAGO, Nov 02, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Huron Consulting Group Inc., a leading provider of business consulting services, today announced the acquisition of Click Commerce, Inc., a provider of software-based solutions and professional services to leading academic medical centers and research institutions. The purchase further enhances the Company's higher education and healthcare research technology solutions for clients in the business of research.
"The addition of Click expands our research technology footprint and enhances our ability to provide our academic medical center and research institution clients with proven technology solutions," said James H. Roth, chief executive officer, Huron Consulting Group. "Click's software expertise and their extensive knowledge of our health and education market will provide Huron's clients with decades of experience and the tools they need to improve the management of basic research and clinical trials."
Click Commerce, based in Beaverton, Ore., focuses on software solutions for research administration and compliance. They have a track record of successfully implementing grant management and regulatory compliance projects of significant scale and complexity at leading research institutions, academic medical centers and hospitals. Click Commerce's eResearch Portal is designed to unify multiple research-related business processes into an integrated, comprehensive electronic solution. They are a leader in large-scale deployments with a client list that includes many of the largest National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research institutions.
Click Commerce's approximately 60 employees will join Huron's Higher Education practice, including Nick Stier, Gary Raetz, and Gary Whitney, who will serve as Huron managing directors. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
"The alignment of Huron's and Click's products and services couldn't be better," said Nick Stier, president of Click Commerce, Inc. "We have had the opportunity to work together on shared-client projects in the past, and we know that our complementary skills create very powerful and innovative solutions. Together, we will have a clear path to provide customers with even more significant regulatory and administrative benefits than was possible in the past."
Research institutions are faced with unique business, research administration and compliance requirements. The acquisition expands Huron's platform for future development of software and service products aimed at higher education and healthcare institutions. The Huron-Click combination provides clients with premier software products coupled with a market leading service provider in areas such as grant administration, IRB (Institutional Review Board), IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee), COI (Conflict of Interest) management, and other highly regulated areas of federally funded research and complex compliance matters.
About Huron's Health and Education Consulting Segment
The Company is a leader in helping healthcare, higher education, and pharmaceutical and medical device companies respond to increasing financial and regulatory challenges. Its Health and Education Consulting segment accounted for nearly 60% of the Company's revenues for the full year 2009. Within this segment, Wellspring+Stockamp, Huron Healthcare assists hospital and health system clients in providing solutions that improve quality, increase revenue, reduce expenses, and increase physician, patient, and employee satisfaction across the healthcare enterprise. Modern Healthcare ranked Huron third on its 2010 list of the top 15 largest healthcare management consulting firms. Huron's Higher Education professionals have served as trusted business advisors for more than 85 of the top 100 research universities and academic medical centers, helping them respond to the significant financial and regulatory pressures facing the industry.
About Huron Consulting Group
Huron Consulting Group helps clients in diverse industries improve performance, comply with complex regulations, reduce costs, recover from distress, leverage technology, and stimulate growth. The Company teams with its clients to deliver sustainable and measurable results. Huron provides services to a wide variety of both financially sound and distressed organizations, including leading academic institutions, healthcare organizations, Fortune 500 companies, medium-sized businesses, and the law firms that represent these various organizations. Learn more at www.huronconsultinggroup.com.
Statements in this press release, including the information incorporated by reference herein, that are not historical in nature, including those concerning the Company's current expectations about its future results, are "forward-looking" statements as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act") and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as "may," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "assumes," "can," "considers," "could," "intends," "might," "predicts," "seeks," "would," "believes," "estimates" or "continues". Risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could impact the Company's forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to (i) the restatement, (ii) the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") investigation with respect to the restatement and the related purported private shareholder class action lawsuit and derivative lawsuits, (iii) the SEC investigation and related Company inquiry into the allocation of time within a certain practice group, and (iv) the request by the United States Attorney's Office ("USAO") for the Northern District of Illinois for certain documents. In addition, these forward-looking statements reflect our current expectation about our future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements, including, without limitation, that our business continues to grow at the current expectations with respect to, among other factors, utilization rates, billing rates, and the number of revenue-generating professionals; that we are able to expand our service offerings; that we successfully integrate the businesses we acquire; and that existing market conditions, including those in the credit markets, do not continue to deteriorate substantially. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any anticipated results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. See "Risk Factors" in our 2009 Annual Report on Form 10-K and in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2010 for a description of the material risks we face.
SOURCE: Huron Consulting Group Inc.
Huron Consulting Group Inc.
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