During the financial year 2007 the Group has acquired several subsidiary undertakings as specified below:
| Name of company |
Type of business |
Business segment |
Country |
Acquisition date |
Percentage
of ownership |
Annual sales prior to acquisition
in millions of Euro |
| Corridor |
Temporary/permanent |
Accounting/finance |
Norway |
January |
84.5% |
€ 7 |
| Major Players |
Temporary/permanent |
Advertising and marketing |
UK |
March |
70% |
€15 |
| HR Partners |
Permanent placement |
Human resources |
Australia |
June |
80% |
€ 2 |
| Think Resources |
Temporary/permanent |
Engineering/technical |
USA |
July |
100% |
€37 |
| Frontier |
Temporary |
Engineering/technical |
Japan |
September |
50.2% |
€ 8 |
| B2B Workforce |
Temporary |
Information technology |
USA |
November |
100% |
€63 |
| Smart Group |
Other recruitment |
HR consultancy |
Netherlands |
December |
65% |
€ 5 |
| GULP |
Temporary |
Information technology |
Germany |
December |
70% |
€41 |
The consideration which has been paid in cash for the acquisitions amounts to €122 million. All acquisitions have been accounted for by the purchase method of accounting. Vedior grants put options to certain minority shareholders; as a consequence the fair value of the liability to the minority shareholder is presented as deferred consideration. The acquisitions had the following effect on the Group’s assets and liabilities:
| Acquirees’ assets and liabilities at the acquisition date |
Carrying amounts |
| Non current assets |
2 |
| Current assets |
38 |
| Current liabilities |
-27 |
| Cash and cash equivalents |
8 |
| Net identifiable assets and liabilities |
21 |
| Goodwill on acquisition |
148 |
| Total purchase consideration |
169 |
| Less: cash and cash equivalents acquired |
-8 |
| Less: deferred consideration business combinations |
-39 |
| Net cash outflow |
122 |
In addition to these acquisitions, Vedior also made a number of other investments during the course of the year. The carrying amounts of each of the assets, liabilities and contingent liabilities in accordance with IFRS immediately before the combination do not materially deviate from the amounts recognised at the acquisition date as disclosed above.
Goodwill on the acquisitions has arisen due to acquired companies’ management experience and knowledge of the local business, which does not meet the recognition criteria of separate intangible assets. See also note 5.5 regarding business combinations.
The acquired companies have contributed €6 million since the acquisition to the Group’s net profit for the year 2007. The accumulated acquisition costs are €3 million.