CMG enjoys a surge in overseas demand for its webinar training
Chris Mee, managing director of CM Group; Thomas Davy, CEO of Erisbeg; and Tim O’Brien, finance manager of CM Group.
Adoption of new digital media technology is fuelling overseas sales growth at Chris Mee Group (CMG), the Cork-based safety training, recruitment and consultancy services provider.
CMG has seen a surge in demand for training in areas such as remote work and ergonomic risk assessment, along with a marked growth in demand for environmental and carbon emissions services.
Accelerated by the Covid pandemic, most of CMG's classroom training models are now delivered via webinar. Most encouraging in this has been the attendant surge in overseas clients.
“We had been adopting new technologies in any case. Covid just made us sharpen our focus,” said Chris Mee, managing director of CMG. “Classroom training took a big hit last April with the first lockdown.
“At the time, we were doing just 1% of our training via webinar. Now we're doing 70% via webinar. That was some turnaround for our business in just a few months, a strategic success led by our technology manager. Over 70% of our business is now with clients located outside of Ireland.
“Our carbon emissions and environmental training have trebled in the last 18 months, showing a huge surge in interest in climate change issues in the business community.
“These are exciting times. The biggest change has been new technology. The pandemic has forced companies to adapt. Either you embrace the new technology or you die.”
The training industry is also in a period of consolidation. CMG is also growing by acquisition. It is currently in talks to acquire four more companies; two of these talks are at terms, two are at pre-heads of terms.
CMG is also putting out feelers for talks with other like-minded companies. Earlier this week, CMG acquired Cork-based Food Safety Company (FSC). Both CMG and FSC are members of the Erisbeg group, the Dublin-based private equity firm.
This is CMG's second acquisition in recent months. It also acquired Emergency Response Training, a company previously owned by John Lynch.
Little Island-based FSC is a provider of food safety, health and safety and hygiene compliance services in Ireland, with clients in healthcare, retail, food manufacturing and other sectors.
FSC was previously owned by food safety specialist Mary Daly. Mary will continue to work with the company in a senior advisory role, while Mairead McCarthy remains in place as general manager.
“Our market space has been ripe for consolidation for years,” said Chris Mee. “We always knew that, but until Erisberg came on board we didn't have deep enough pockets. The market is continuing to grow and Erisberg sees the opportunity the same way we do.”
Erisberg has come to prominence as a provider of capital support, but also as a partner to companies trying to execute ambitious M&A plans. It has invested in companies looking to scale up, notably in sectors such as energy, environmental services, financial services, food, healthcare, plastics and telecomms.
In April, Erisberg announced that it had raised €75m from European investors for its first fund targeting investments in Irish SMEs. That fund is expected to reach €100m.
Founded in 2017 by former Blackstone executive Alan Kerr and Thomas Davy (ex-DCC), notable Erisberg group members include health equipment distributor Medray, communications firm BP Multipage, as well as FSC and CMG.
“We were always looking for CMG to be a one-stop shop for environmental, health and training services,” said Chris Mee. “To scale up, we wanted to add to our company portfolio. Partnering with people who add to our service offering will see us get bigger as time goes on.
“Technology was a core part of our strategy for growth. It has helped us to increase our reach and given us the scalability we were looking for. The pandemic has accelerated us in the direction we were going along in any case.”
Following the acquisition of FSC and other companies, CMG is expecting to recruit 30 to 50 additional highly skilled staff and is conservatively anticipating revenue growth for the group in 2021 of over 50%.
CMG is also currently embarking on a recruitment drive to increase its core staff and contractor numbers. Most of these jobs will be based in the Dublin and Cork regions.
CMG works in most sectors, including construction, pharma, biopharma, insurance, banking, food production, utilities and more.
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