CapitalChange helps AWI Software with acquisitions, mergers and business strategy
Regional entrepreneurs with growth ambitions or the realization of an exit strategy, and looking for advice and support in doing so, can meet the sparring partners and investors of CapitalChange on September 22, 23, and 24. A group of specialists in the field of growth, value creation, mergers and acquisitions, who also have the opportunity to invest. A unique opportunity. We spoke with AWI Software from Ede, which, partly thanks to the cooperation with CapitalChange, has experienced beautiful growth in recent years.
Repositioning
AWI Software from Ede and the umbrella holding 4 Insurance are in full swing. Partly through acquisitions the company is growing and expanding its market position. The cooperation with CapitalChange is very important in this respect. Manon Borsboom of AWI and Robert van der Plas of CapitalChange have been talking to each other at least once a week for a few years now.
Manon Borsboom has been co-CEO of AWI Software together with Paul Hijmans for a year and a half. AWI primarily makes software for proxy companies and service providers, but also for insurers and end customers. Borsboom and Hijmans are also shareholders in the umbrella holding company 4 Insurance.
Borsboom has known Robert van der Plas of CapitalChange for more than 15 years. Van der Plas, together with CapitalChange colleague Albert Marseille, has owned sixty percent of AWI Software and later of 4 Insurance since 2017. When repositioning the company, he asked Borsboom to become a co-director. Several acquisitions and mergers also took place: Differ Solutions in 2019, EURO-motive last year and currently FinConnect. Partly as a result, AWI now has a broader offering and is tapping into new target groups, including insurers.
Sparring
During the repositioning and acquisitions, the expertise of CapitalChange’s partners came into play: a group of experienced entrepreneurs and investors who act as sparring partners for companies. “On the one hand, our role has to do with buying, structuring and merging and everything that comes with that contractually,” Van der Plas says. “And on the other hand with everything to do with creating and calculating new business models and positioning. We support Manon and Paul in this.”
Borsboom: “When it comes to acquisitions, such as the current FinConnect acquisition, we spar together about the approach and how to put things on paper. For example, what do you need to consider in a ‘letter of intent’? What needs to be put down on paper and how can you simply trust another party? Robert and Albert teach us the tricks of the trade. We also analyze the results and market developments together. Are we doing the right things and is the focus right, or do we need to take things off our plate?”
Borsboom speaks with Van der Plas at least weekly, she says. “That can really be about all kinds of business issues. It’s very nice that Robert knows this industry very well. With Albert Marseille we spar more specifically about financial subjects and merger and acquisition projects. They complement each other very well. It’s a collaboration that suits us very well.”