SA digital consultancy goes west with Lime Theory acquisition
Bailey Abbott Group is expanding into Western Australia with an acquisition the company’s founder hopes will turbocharge its data capabilities.
The acquisition of Perth-based business intelligence firm Lime Theory will give South Australian digital transformation and data intelligence company Bailey Abbott a foothold in the West Australian market.
Announced today, the Adelaide-based group founded in 2020 has formalised its push into Perth, where it set up an office just a few months ago led by Glen Appleton, who was appointed managing director WA.
It’s a homecoming moment for Bailey Abbott founder and 40 Under 40 alumni Tom Carlton, who grew up in Western Australia’s capital.
“I really love WA, and the market is so similar to South Australia,” he told InDaily from Perth.
“The way they do business over here, it’s all about trust. It’s all about relationships. We also saw the market being similar to what’s happened in South Australia, where all the medium-sized local players have been acquired and so there’s room for us to come into the market and just sit at the right size.
“Not too big, not too small, but really the right size for each of the states and be a dominant player in that market.”
Lime Theory, founded by Matt Neil, is a business intelligence firm that helps other companies use their data wisely.
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This was the right fit for Bailey Abbott, Carlton said, because “a lot of our work has now been coming from the data side of the business”.
“Lime Theory is a business intelligence company with a really good client base over in WA and really good people in the business,” he said.
“It’s only a small company with sort of sub 10 staff but as part of our merger and acquisition journey we want to do a couple of small ones at the start to really make sure that we’ve got our playbook and everything geared up and ready.
“It’s a really good cultural fit for us, so they can sort of slot straight into the team that we’ve got in Western Australia.”
He said Bailey Abbott was seeing “huge demand” for AI services in the market.
“We’re seeing it as a really core part of our business and we’re really leaning into that,” he said.
“We’re seeing that we can get our AI-enabled consultants to deliver a lot of impact for not a lot of cost. It’s a real differentiator for us in the market opposed to the traditional consulting model of the Big Four.
“We’ve really embraced AI as a business and we’re driving hard into it. That’s certainly part of the reason behind this acquisition in WA.”
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The deal was backed by a “significant capital raise” which will also support investment in the group’s portfolio of brands – Bastion Technology Services (cybersecurity) and Digivate Health (specialised health transformation advisory).
“We’ve traditionally been a business that raises capital for expansion so we can grow quite quickly,” Carlton said.
“We traditionally grow at between 30 and 40 per cent a year on average, so it’s quite rapid growth. But that does cost cash.”
The company has also implemented an employee share option plan, whereby staff can buy into the business.
Carlton said this helps drive capital into the business but also gives staff more ownership over the place they work for.
“We’ve divested 10 per cent of the company into the staff as options, so they can purchase some of the business in two years’ time at today’s price – it should be a fairly aggressive growth strategy over the next two years,” Carlton said.
“We wanted to share that growth with our staff in terms of a financial outcome for them. What motivates me as a founder and a leader is not just working with colleagues, but having them invest in the business and being a part-owner of the company.”
Back in Adelaide, the company now boasts more than 60 clients across public and private sectors, while the firm’s trading value has doubled in the first three years of business managing multi-million-dollar contracts.
Carlton said there was still “a lot of work coming through” in business transformation projects in South Australia.
“And there’s a huge amount of data work coming through,” he said.
The company also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with SA-headquartered advertising firm KWP+Partners.
Carlton said he saw Bailey Abbott as being in the top two or three data companies in South Australia.
“There’s going to be a really big push for us in making sure that when people think of data and SA, they think of Bailey Abbott,” he said.
