Recruitment & HRDeals

TalentTech company Reward Gateway has been acquired in a £1.15 billion deal.

The London firm, an employee engagement platform featuring rewards, wellbeing, surveys, benefits and discounts, has been taken over by French business Edenred as it acquires 100% of its share capital.

Reward Gateway has strong positions in the UK and in Australia, and is also present in the United States. 

Founded in 2006, it has more than 4,000 customers with eight million employees using its solutions. It has API integrations with more than 40 HRIS, payroll, collaborative tools, benefits and third-party software providers, offering employers an automated experience. 

Reward Gateway has enjoyed continued double-digit revenue growth and consistently high profitability over the recent years. It forecasts to generate £95m revenue and £45m EBITDA in FY2023.

“We are extremely proud to join Edenred. The combination of Reward Gateway’s operations and technology with Edenred’s position as a global market leader across one million corporate clients in 45 countries, offers an accelerated path to achieve our mission of ‘making the world a better place to work’,” said Nick Burns, CEO. 

“As we will aim at a single unified platform, we will benefit from economies of scale to build tailored solutions for specific markets. Bringing together our collective strengths, from commercial reach to product innovation and advanced technology, will be putting us in a position to provide HR leaders with a truly market-beating solution.”

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Reward Gateway is currently held by funds managed by private equity firms Abry Partners and Castik Capital. The acquisition, expected to close before the end of the week, will be fully paid in cash and financed by a €1bn bridge loan to be later refinanced on the debt capital markets as well as by €300m from available cash at hand. 

Edenred has successfully extended its portfolio into non-meal and food benefits over the years. The group has developed a leading offer in employee benefits and savings platforms in 17 countries, reinforced by the recently announced acquisition of GOintegro in Latin America. 

It says the acquisition of Reward Gateway marks a major milestone in the roll-out of its Beyond22-25 strategic plan. It will see Reward Gateway rolled out in six major countries – Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Romania and Spain. 

Bertrand Dumazy, chairman and CEO at Edenred, said: “By integrating this leading employee engagement platform, we are substantially extending our employee benefits offer to provide HR managers with a comprehensive range of solutions helping them make their organisation more attractive to talents. 

“While Reward Gateway is bringing us leading positions in the UK and in Australia, as well as a promising presence in the US market, we will be looking at scaling Reward Gateway outside of its current footprint in selected key countries. 

“The combination of our people, our solutions, our customer bases and our technologies offers high potential for synergies.”

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