ABeam Consulting Enters U.K. Consulting Business Market

On February 28, 2007, ABeam Consulting Limited (based in Chiyoda-ward, Tokyo and headed by Kazumasa Nishioka, CEO) acquired Leadent Limited (based in Oxford, U.K. and headed by Alastair Clifford-Jones, representative) to create its U.K. base. Upon completing the acquisition, ABeam Consulting began to offer all enterprises conducting business in the U.K., including Japanese firms there, the benefits of its consultancy services.

Continuing on from its GDP growth rate of over 2.5% in 2006, the U.K. is expected to mark the highest GDP growth rate among the major EU member countries. The U.K. consultancy business market is also expected to record a high growth rate amounting to double-digit figures.

In response to strong needs of our clients conducting business in Europe, we set up our first European business bases (in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland) in February 2006. In November of that same year, we expanded our business bases (in Italy, Spain and Portugal) by forming a strategic alliance with Business Integration Partners S.p.A. In January 2007, we established a strategic alliance with Akselera AS to set up our business bases in the Nordic region (Norway and Finland). Although those activities resulted in our establishing a network connecting nine countries in Europe, we considered that it would also be vitally important to establish a consultancy service base in the U.K., a country that has continuously attained high growth rates while being closely associated with the Asian economies. To achieve that, we finally decided it would be in our best interest to acquire Leadent Limited. In establishing the U.K. base, ABeam Consulting Europe, one of ABeam Consulting's subsidiaries, acquired all of the stocks of Leadent Limited, an independent consultancy firm based in the U.K., as of February 28, 2007. Leadent Limited retains its name after the acquisition and has already commenced its business activities as a new global service base of ABeam Consulting. Mr. Alastair Clifford-Jones will continue to lead the existing 25-consultant team.

Leadent Limited has already earned a track record in a broad range of fields from business consultation to the consultation of system introduction. It displays strength in the introduction of ERP packages to public and utility service organizations. Leadent's clients have included Whitbread, Woolworths and NATS (National Air Traffic Services) where the focus had been on ERP implementation services. In addition the company is highly recognized in the Utilities industry where it works for Centrica, Thames Water, Anglian Water amongst others. It intends to actively provide public service corporations in the U.K, exploiting the Government Catalist framework agreement, with ERP package introduction services as they are expected to offer strong demand for the services. It also plans to provide multinational corporations that are already active in the U.K. as well as local businesses planning to enter the Asian markets with consultation services leveraging on ABeam's global network and synergetic effects related with it. It aims to generate annual sales of 3 billion JPY and mobilize a team of 50 consultants in the near future.

To establish itself as an Asia-based global consultancy firm, ABeam Consulting intends to grow into an organization with a total of 10,000 consultants, including those of its group companies and its alliance partners. Simultaneously, it will energetically expand its global network connecting an increasing number of business bases.