by Jason Morris

This topic created a big buzz at last months NAPBS (National Association of Professional Background Screeners) Conference.  It was rumored that Marsh & MacLennon could not fit the Kroll group into its portfolio of companies.  This latest moves solidifies this rumor. It appears that the core “employment screening” aspect of Kroll will remain with Marsh, but other areas will be sold off.

Marsh & MacLennon CEO: Will Sell Parts of Kroll Unit

Weeks after reportedly rebuffing a bid for its Kroll unit, Marsh & MacLennan Cos. (MMC) said it will sell parts of the business.

Insurance broker Marsh & MacLennan bought corporate security and investigations firm Kroll in 2004, but never successfully integrated it into the larger business, said Brian Duperreault, Marsh & MacLennan’s chief executive during the company’s first-quarter earnings call Wednesday.

During the quarter, the company undertook a restructuring of Kroll, to separate the businesses it expects to keep from those it will seek to sell.

Duperreault said that he considers Kroll’s employment-screening, business- intelligence and investigations operations “core Kroll,” and intends to incorporate those more closely into Marsh and MacLennan.

Kroll’s corporate restructuring group should also perform well in the current economic downturn, Duperreault said.

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by Jason Morris

We have been predicting consolidation in the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) arena for the past few years. It came as no surprise to us that Taleo will be acquiring Vurv Technologies. This blog posting may surprise our readers who are used to reading about background checks and employment screening. We felt this announcement would impact our readers in the HR and Recruiting space so we decided to post it.

Taleo to acquire Vurv Technology

Unique breadth, scale, experience and global capabilities created by this acquisition produce a market leader in the fastest growing segment of enterprise software.

This acquisition will create the largest company in the talent management software sector and the third largest Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendor in the world, serving 48 of the Fortune 100 and more than 2,800 small and medium sized businesses worldwide. According to AMR Research, the company is part of the fastest growing category in enterprise software.

This acquisition will benefit the combined customer base by focusing the industry’s leading talent management resources on a single development investment. Two world-class development teams will join forces to create a talent management engineering Dream Team, sharing a unified vision of building the next generation of talent management applications. The combined company will benefit customers by providing the industry’s strongest global footprint, improved technology infrastructure and scalability, streamlined implementation and customer support, highly concentrated thought-leadership based on broader and deeper experience, and significant buying convenience.

No immediate impact is expected to Vurv or Taleo customers, as both product lines will be supported for the foreseeable future. In the months and years ahead, customers can depend on this new powerhouse to deliver innovative solutions as business needs evolve. The goal of the combined company is to incorporate the best of Vurv’s intellectual property and product line into the Taleo Platform, delivering a unified recruiting, performance and compensation solution. Upon completion, customers will have a simple migration path to a unified talent management platform that will appreciate in value over time.

The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of June, after the standard regulatory review period is completed, and is expected to be accretive immediately.