The Cotswold Group, which provides surveillance, fraud analytics and intelligence services, has been acquired by G4S for a total of £10.2 million.
The Cotswold Group, which provides surveillance, fraud analytics and intelligence services, has been acquired by G4S for a total of £10.2 million.
The deal for Cotswold follows G4S’s acquisition of coin management service MCH for £7 million in January. In December G4S purchased Guernsey Air Conditioning bringing its total acquisition count to seven for 2010.
Security services business G4S, which employs 625,000 people in 120 countries, will pay an initial £8 million for Cotswold with an additional £2.2 paid upon the achievement of targets in 2011 and 2012.
The acquisition will be used to strengthen the strategic development of G4S’s covert surveillance and investigations capability, according to a statement released by the company.
Additionally, Cotswold will provide G4S with the opportunity to ‘pursue major opportunities’ within UK central and local government in areas such as benefit fraud investigations.
Tom Scott, CEO of The Cotswold Group, comments: ‘The opportunity to create a major force in investigation services and work with G4S teams in the UK and globally is an extremely exciting prospect.’
