Stockholm and New York – February 28, 2019 – BTS GROUP AB (publ), – a leading global strategy implementation firm, expands its offer by acquiring Polaris Assessment Systems to include employment screening and interviewing services and solutions to help clients better select, develop and promote people.
Through the acquisition BTS gains two business advantages; new industry-leading services that give access to a new market segment worth approximately 2 Bn. USD globally, and secondly, bringing on board three influential thought leaders in this market segment.
The acquisition includes a minor cash consideration as well as a new issue of BTS shares corresponding to 0.1 MUSD in exchange for the rights to Polaris business, assets and solutions.
“Executive teams increasingly want to establish clear leadership and behavioral expectations for employees to ensure their culture is in lockstep with their evolving strategy. A wider scope of assessment and interviewing solutions will help our clients embed their new people expectations throughout their people processes,” says Jessica Parisi, President and CEO, BTS USA.
“The added capacity is a natural extension of BTS’s growing assessment practice. Polaris’ industry-leading module library further builds BTS’s ability to create highly personalized assessments with speed, taking weeks out of screening processes,” says Sandra B. Hartog, PH.D., Partner and Head of Global Assessment at BTS.
Brad Chambers, Ph.D. will be joining as a senior Assessment practice team member. Brad has deep experience developing valid, legally defensible selection systems for some of the world’s leading organizations. Brad was the Chief Operating Officer at Polaris and prior to Polaris he was an Assistant Vice President at Aon Hewitt.
“We are delighted to join the BTS family,” says Brad Chambers. “We could not be more excited to partner with such a talented group of individuals who all aspire to do great things for their clients. Together we will bring even more resources and capabilities to our clients, and we believe that BTS will be a terrific environment for our people to grow and develop, both personally and professionally.”
Neal Schmitt, Ph.D. will serve as a BTS advisor. Neal is the author of numerous books, journal articles, and technical reports on testing issues and is the recipient of 15 distinguished awards. In 2016, he received the Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science from the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association.
John Arnold, Ph.D. will also contribute as a BTS advisor. John is the founder of Polaris and cofounded HR Strategies which was acquired by Aon Consulting. At Aon, John was the Director of US Consulting.
About BTS Group AB
BTS is a global professional services firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with close to 700 professionals in 37 offices located on six continents. We focus on the people side of strategy, working with leaders at all levels to help them make better decisions, convert those decisions to actions and deliver results. At our core, we believe people learn best by doing. For 30 years, we’ve been designing fun, powerful experiences™ that have a profound and lasting impact on people and their careers. We inspire new ways of thinking, build critical capabilities and unleash business success.
It’s strategy made personal.
We serve a wide range of client needs, including: Assessment centers for talent selection and development, Strategy alignment and execution, Business acumen, Leadership and sales training programs, and On-the-job business simulations and application tools.
We partner with nearly 450 organizations, including over 30 of the world’s 100 largest global corporations. Our major clients are e.g. AT&T, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Ericsson, Google, GSK, HP, HSBC, Salesforce.com, and Unilever.
BTS is a public company listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange and trades under the symbol BTS B.
For more information, please visit www.bts.com.
