TXT announced that it has entered a binding agreement for the acquisition of Maple Lake. Maple Lake is a leading vendor of Assortment Planning and Allocation solutions for Specialty Retailers with Head Quarters in Toronto, Canada, and offices in the UK and Australia. The Maple Lake acquisition is in line with the TXT strategy to become the leading provider of integrated retail planning solutions worldwide. The combined entity will be able to offer to its clients:
•Global Coverage: with a strong presence in North America, Europe and Australia and a partner network to serve the rest of the world.
•Leading Retail Planning Consulting Practice: the combined team is expected to be the largest in terms of dedicated retail planning consultants, with a unique combination of real life business process knowledge and experience as well as advanced technical skills.
•Advanced Retail Planning Solution: The TXT Integrated Retail Planning solution, already considered a worldwide best in class retail planning solution by customers and industry analysts, will be further improved, leveraging the advanced assortment planning and allocation capabilities available in the Maple Lake solution.
All of the existing Maple Lake products will continue to be commercially available, evolved and supported for a minimum of 5 years.
Marco Guida, TXT CEO, commented: “We’ve achieved an exciting milestone and an important and consistent next step in our strategy of becoming the worldwide leader of Integrated Retail Planning. We shall now be able to offer globally, solutions and services that have already proven to bring substantial benefits to Fashion and Retail leaders. We expect that the value generated for our customers will also continue to drive TXT sales and margins growth.”
Andrea Cencini, EVP Managing Director, added: “I want to extend a warm welcome to Maple Lake clients; we have invested in Maple Lake for the same reasons they selected Maple Lake: advanced solutions, great people and customer focus. These are also TXT values and all Maple Lake clients can expect outstanding support and great opportunities to drive additional benefits to their companies in the future.”
Maple Lake President Neil Coulton and Maple Lake CEO Mark Stone have accepted strategic roles in the combined entity.
Neil Coulton commented: “At Maple Lake we are very excited to join the TXT family, we believe that the combination of business skills and the advanced technology available in the combined entity, will drive great benefits to Retail Companies.”
Mark Stone commented: “Retail Planning skills are a scarce resource in the market. Having such a large practice of experts working together is a unique opportunity to improve best practices, and solve some of the most complex retail planning problems. In addition, by combining our knowledge of North American, UK and Continental European retailing, we can help retailers exploit best practices that will drive real business benefits.
The acquisition is subject to the completion of the administrative and accounting procedure and is expected to be finalized by September 15th , 2012.
