Integrity HSE expands as it completes first acquisition

Consultancy firm Integrity HSE has made its first acquisition 14 months after opening its doors.

The Aberdeen-based firm has picked up the risk management business Praesidio which provides risk management, emergency response and consultancy services.

The consultancy business now forecasts £2.5 million in revenues during its second year after taking in £1.2m during its first 12 months of operations.

On the recent deal, Integrity HSE managing director Steven Harris told Energy Voice: “M&A [mergers and acquisitions] has been part of our growth strategy from day one.”

He added that while looking for any potential takeover targets Integrity HSE was keeping an eye out for “organisations that aligned with our values and looked at the world through our lens and we very much found one with Praesidio.”

Praesidio’s former operations director Rob Diver joins Integrity HSE as head of risk and resilience at Integrity HSE, Rob Diver. He brings with him skills to offer peaceful protest strategies to energy businesses.

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Mr Harris added: “If we were to look at a risk profile of the world just now, we were to forecast where the greatest risk is going to come from, it’s geopolitical instability.

“We see that with the humanitarian crisis that’s happening in Ukraine. We see that with the humanitarian crisis that’s happening in the Middle East.

“The world does not look like it’s going to get a more peaceful, safer place, quite the opposite.

“We wanted to get ahead of that so we can arm our clients and prepare our clients and facilitate their safe and healthy and productive operations without undue risks to their personnel. That’s exactly what Rob brings to the table.”

The deal was ‘obvious from day one’

Speaking on their first meeting Mr Harris said it was “scary” how similarly he and Mr Diver approach the future of the business.

The former Praesidio boss added that the decision to work with Integrity HSE was “obvious from day one” and would double his firm’s global footprint.

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Mr Diver said: “This collaboration builds on all the great work done by both companies and allows us to align behind our collective values and offer some truly industry-leading solutions to the market”.

The Praesidio team is built up of senior ex-police and armed forces personnel from across the UK, Canada, the United States, and the Middle East.

Director of safety and risk for Integrity HSE, Darrell Lines, added that the firm is “now unrivalled” at helping clients prepare for a crisis.

“We have the in-house experts who create procedures and processes, give you the training and even run exercises to ensure you are ready for every eventuality”.

New offices further south

As the firm looks to crack £2 million in annual revenues it also wants to extend its reach by opening offices across the UK.

The company is seeking office space in Glasgow and will open a Leeds office “within the next nine months”, Harris said.

He added: “The reason we’re so attracted to Leeds is that the entire north of England corridor from Hull across to Manchester takes in a huge demographic of the population.

“We are an HSE consultancy just now, we specialise in heavy industry and that north of England piece is really interesting to us.”

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Mr Harris said that Integrity HSE’s health department is “spearheaded by clinical psychologists” and that the team’s expertise could “bring an awful lot of relief to the unnecessary suffering within that area.”

The firm also plans to look “down the M25” to London as well while his firm expands its client base in the south of England and in Belfast.

However, the London and Northern Ireland bases “won’t be in the next 9 to 12 months. That will beyond that,” Mr Harris explained.