Wolters Kluwer snaps up cloud-based lender eOrignal for €231m
Wolters Kluwer’s risk and compliance arm has agreed to buy Baltimore-based digital lending software provider eOriginal in an all-cash deal for €231 million.
The US-Dutch acquirer wants to extend its lending compliance solutions in the US, from document generation and analytics to digital loan closing and storage adjacency.
The buyer will purchase eOriginal’s parent company, Paperless Transaction Management, as part of the deal. Its subsidiary has some 100 employees.
Steven Meirink, Wolters Kluwer
“The acquisition positions us as the leading provider of digital lending solutions,” says Steven Meirink, EVP and GM at Wolters Kluwer’s Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), “spanning all workflows from loan approval, to document preparation and closing, with compliance certainty.”
8% return on investment
In 2020, eOriginal projects revenues of around €31 million. Almost 95% of this, it says, is recurring and cloud based.
It also claims revenues have grown “at a double-digit” rate over the last three years. Wolters Kluwer anticipates a return on investment of 8% within three to five years of the deal closing.
Wolters Kluwer first came across eOriginal in 2016, when the US-Dutch software giant decided to use the firm’s electronic vaulting and closing software for its subsidiary Expere.
How eOriginal works
eOriginal has some 650 customers – comprised of banks as well as personal, mortgage, auto and equipment finance lenders.
According to the soon-to-be-acquired firm’s website, it works with the likes of US Bank, fintech lender SoFi, and Ally Bank.
Its platform allows these customers to create, store and manage digital assets from close through to the secondary loan market.
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