Houlihan Lokey Advises Audit Analytics

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce the sale of Ives Group Inc., trading as Audit Analytics, to Ideagen plc for an initial cash consideration of $44.9 million with a further earn-out of $5 million.

Audit Analytics was established in 2000 and is used everyday to empower accounting, financial, and compliance professionals with the informative content critical to their regulatory work. As a trusted source for research, data is collected, organised, and analysed with rigour to support online market intelligence, due diligence, and risk assessment tools for thousands of audit, corporate, regulatory, investment, accounting, and research professionals. Audit Analytics provides more than 500 customers—including BDO, RSM, PwC, Bloomberg, and the SEC—with powerful and unique data for better decision-making.

Ideagen is a leader in the $30 billion GRC software market, serving highly regulated industries such as life sciences, healthcare, banking and finance, and insurance. Ideagen’s software helps companies comply with regulation and manage risk. With over 700 employees, Ideagen is headquartered in the UK, listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM market under the ticker “IDEA.L,” and has key hubs in the UK, US, Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Ideagen has made 20 acquisitions to build its market leadership and announced the acquisition of Ai XPRT alongside the Audit Analytics transaction.

“With the acquisitions of Audit Analytics and Ai XPRT, Ideagen has enhanced its position as the only end-to-end platform for audit and compliance and accelerated the roll-out of our AI capabilities,” said Ben Dorks, the CEO of Ideagen.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Audit Analytics. This transaction further enhances the Data & Analytics Group’s extensive track record in the governance, risk, and compliance data, analytics, and software sectors. Recently closed transactions in the sector include the combination of Informa’s FBX business with Novantas, Inc.; the acquisition of Enhesa by CGE Partners; the sale of Enviance to Cority; the sale of eVision Industry Software to Wolters Kluwer; the sale of Bureau van Dijk to Moody’s Analytics; the acquisition of Trucost by S&P Dow Jones Indices; and the sale of Intelligize to LexisNexis.