The Screening Industry Vibe is all About Mergers and Acquisitions!

First, this is not a PBSA “conference update” blog, my colleagues and I will be doing a webinar next week to update everyone on what we are seeing and hearing in the industry.  You don’t wanna miss this one, there is a ton going on!

2021 had more than 25 transactions happen in the industry, including 3 of the largest CRA’s going public, it was quite the year. 2022 will be no exception. Private Equity remains highly inquisitive with several CRA’s looking to test the waters. From what I am hearing, deal-flow remains high not only in the US market but internationally as well. CERTN just acquired a company from the UK and I can only imagine with their war chest there are many more to come. Checkr’s acquisition of GoodHire didn’t take many by surprise but the valuation did.  $400 million drives up the valuation of Checkr as well to almost 5 billion, but that’s a valuation and not real money.  I currently know of a few deals that should close by the end of Q2 so the last six months of the year should be really exciting. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see deals completed by Accurate (now the 4th largest CRA), CERTN, Tonka Bay (OrangeTree), InformData (Formerly SJV/Wholesale), and of course the now publicly traded CRA’s. I think you will see some interesting things out of larger firms this year as well as some defensive moves coming out of Transunion and Experian. Lots of buyers approached us at the conference, several sellers as well. This tells me that our small industry will be getting even smaller as we approach 2023.  We are looking to have Cherie Smith Homa do a webinar with us at IQubed Advisors in the coming weeks to recap her perspective. Her presentation at PBSA was fantastic, we will also chat about it next week. Her perspective on our Total Addressable Market (TAM), industry landscape, and some of the factors impacting value were fantastic.

Why is this all happening? Well, the screening market has matured in a lot of ways and the market is incredibly strong. There is a ton of money out there to make investments like this and the market loves our space.  I also think that the past two years had a lot to do with it, I don’t think anyone wants to re-live any kind of downturn again, which is likely coming in the form of a recession.

We will discuss this and many other topics next week at our webinar, hope you can join Kevin Bachman, Nick Fishman, and myself. In the meantime, if you’d like to have a confidential conversation about M&A I am happy to discuss it at any time!

Best,

Jason

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Jason Morris
Jason Morris

A background screening pioneer thought leader, and prominent expert with almost three decades o....

A background screening pioneer thought leader, and prominent expert with almost three decades of industry experience, Jason Morris is the co-founder of IQubed Advisors, a specialty advisory firm to the background screening industry. He is also an active investor and board advisor to several startups and established businesses, including Lively, Citadel, Ferretly, TPA Stream, CrossChq, Verifiable, and Court Connect.