Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services (CLS) announced it has acquired CitizenHawk, Inc., a leading provider of SaaS solutions and services specializing in online brand protection and global domain recovery. CitizenHawk, based in Aliso Viejo, California, serves more than 250 blue-chip brands with approximately one in four companies on Internet Retailer's Top 500 list as clients. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
CitizenHawk allows Corsearch to offer its customers a greater range of online brand protection services: from continuous monitoring of the Internet for all type and cybersquatting to identifying and taking action on unauthorized and fraudulent domains to monitoring e-commerce, social media and other channels for brand abuse.
Conclusion:
This is another bolt-on acquisition, in line with the company’s growth strategy and having no impact on our investment case. The deal further expands CLS's global portfolio of trademark and brand clearance and protection solutions under the Corsearch brand.
We remind that the CLS business includes 4 verticals: i) Legal Compliance Management (this is the largest within CLS although all 4 segments have a critical size), ii) Lien Management, iii) Brand Management, which will integrate CitizenHawk and iv) Legal Spend Management.