Just when it appeared the year would end without more consolidation in the talent acquisition arena, two deals managed to get in under the wire.
On the penultimate day of 2010, First Advantage was acquired by a private equity firm that also holds a sizeable chunk of Lawson Software. Symphony Technology Group, based in Palo Alto, California, bought First Advantage for $265 million in cash from owner CoreLogic.
First Advantage is involved in multiple aspects of talent acquisition, including background screening and assessments, applicant tracking technology, onboarding, and candidate sourcing and recruitment marketing.
First Advantage CEO Todd Mavis will remain.
Coincidentally, Lawson Software announced just before Christmas that it was acquiring Enwisen, a SaaS HR services provider, for $70 million, plus a contingent additional $5 million. The deal was to close last Friday.
A global ERP provider, Lawson serves multiple business sectors, including manufacturing, distribution, financial, healthcare, and others. It offers a range of HR technology from talent acquisition to workforce management, which roll up into its Lawson Strategic Human Capital Management.
Enwisen, which also has a global client list, brings a complementary set of services, adding onboarding and offboarding, a knowledge base, and HR portal to enhance Lawson’s own self-service component, and other worker usability elements. Lawson said Enwisen’s HR service delivery will become a new strategic component of the Lawson Human Capital Management System.