British BSI takes over NCSI on Australian food certification
The British Standards Institute (BSI) has announced it has completed the acquisition of the Australian third party auditing, assurance and certification organisation NCS International (NCSI), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Association of Testing Authorities Australia.
NCSI offers a variety of internationally recognised business verification, assessment and certification programs across industry sectors including food, health and services, mining and utilities.
BSI said its acquisition of NCSI “complements and expands” BSI’s strategy to offer a greater range of integrated services from a single provider in Australia, and “significantly broadens the footprint and scalability of the operations with offices in each of the major State capitals”. The BSI said it also enabled the Organisation access to NCSI’s certification expertise in the “key sectors” of agri-food and healthcare, both in Australia and globally.
“This acquisition meets the BSI growth strategy, strengthens our expertise in food security and healthcare sectors and will enable Australian clients to better embed habits of excellence in all aspects of their business,” said Howard Kerr, Chief Executive at BSI.
“We have confidence in the resilience and long-term prospects for the Australian economy, a country where we first collaborated with Standards Australia in the 1930s,” Mr Kerr said.
The BSI said it certified its first Australian client in 1986, and that its presence was “strengthened” in 2006 when it acquired Benchmark Australia.
“This acquisition further demonstrates our commitment to invest in our Australian business, to deliver great benefits to Australian industry, and to help clients compete more effectively domestically and through our global network,” Mr Kerr said.
The BSI said NCSI is a “well-established and highly regarded company which is strongly aligned” to its business and values. The Company said that the combined expertise of the BSI and NCSI would help to grow the business through independent assessment, training and certification to a variety of Standards and Codes of Practice.
“Our two companies share many core values – we have similar foundations and both have a commitment to meet the real needs of clients and help them embed excellence in their organisation,” said Nick Koukoulas, Managing Director at BSI Australia. “This results in better performance, better risk management and sustainable growth,” he said.
The BSI said its operations would be integrated with existing NCSI operations.
The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The expected combined revenue for 2013 in Australia is AU$35 million.
The BSI recently published its financial results for 2012, which showed 13 years of continuous revenue and profit growth. In 2012, revenue was up 5 per cent to AU$389 million, with underlying operating profit up 11 per cent to AU$49 million.
