Babington announces it’s latest Acquisition

Today @_Babington announces it has agreed terms to acquire the majority of the apprenticeship business from @peopleplusuk

This acquisition further strengthens Babington’s position as the forerunner in innovative and differentiated apprenticeship provision across the markets it serves and enhances the company’s future growth plans and performance. This acquisition helps to cement our position in the market and brings excellent opportunity, great capabilities of people and systems and an established customer and learner base.

Babington is really excited to welcome around 100 new employees across England and Scotland into the group together with almost two thousand learners and the acquisition will further develop Babington’s expanding offer in being the training partner of choice for large corporates and SMEs.

Attracted by a common business culture, PeoplePlus (PP), part of Staffline Group, agreed with Babington to divest the majority of their apprenticeship business as it forms part of a strategic re-focus for PeoplePlus on its core markets of employability and adult skills, where it is the leading provider of services to central and devolved government.

In 2019, under new leadership of the Senior Executive Board, Babington redefined its Purpose, Vision, Mission and Values. To enable that, Babington have embarked on a comprehensive and bold three-year transformation strategy. This has

resulted in an enhanced technology infrastructure, seamless customer and learner journeys and significant changes to delivery models to put customers at the heart of all Babington does. We have successfully navigated the past 8 months, gaining new customers and capabilities and our ability to complete this transaction further demonstrates the significant amount of work that the teams have achieved during the past year.

David Marsh Babington CEO is quoted as saying “After discussions with PeoplePlus we have confirmed that we share common values and vision in developing better futures and delivering to our customers. It has become clear this is not just a great business fit, but also a great cultural one.”   

“We are therefore incredibly excited about the potential this unlocks for us in the years to come, providing ongoing commitment and support to employees, employers and learners.  By bringing the apprenticeship arm of PeoplePlus into the Babington family, It strengthens our strategic aims to focus on certain customer sectors and further develops our capabilities in digital and data, as well as financial services, logistics and our continued investment in professional services such as leadership and management.”

Simon Rouse, Group Managing Director of PeoplePlus, commented:

“In common with most organisations, we have been reviewing our market strategies in response to the impact of Covid-19.”

“PeoplePlus has capabilities, experience and multi-regional scale which are unique in the employability and adult skills markets. Our agreement with Babington will enable us to focus on these services – supporting our central and devolved government partners in responding to the unprecedented, UK-wide employment challenge that now exists.”

“Like PeoplePlus, Babington is an organisation which places best-in-class customer service and quality of delivery at the heart of its business. Working closely with Babington as we have done in recent weeks, we are confident that this agreement represents an excellent outcome for our colleagues, learners and clients”