With revenues last year of some $5.5 billion, the Dutch company Wolters Kluwer is a major global publisher of information for professionals in law, health, accounting and compliance. But something that always seemed askew to me about its corporate organization was that its two principal legal product groups, Enterprise Legal Management Solutions (ELM) and Legal & Regulatory (LR), operated as separate businesses.
Now that has changed, as Wolters Kluwer announced today that the ELM unit is being transferred to the LR division, where, the company said, “we see opportunities for closer alignment with our legal software business.”
Wolters Kluwer made the announcement as part of its full-year report to investors.
ELM previously was part of the company Governance, Risk & Compliance business, which was also home to financial technology lines.
But now the company is forming a new division, Corporate Performance & ESG, that brings together its various software businesses that focus on corporate performance management, environmental health and safety, and risk. Wolters Kluwer’s risk management software, Enablon, which was previously part of the LR division, now moves to the new CP & ESG division.
The former GRC division will now become Financial & Corporate Compliance and will encompass CT Corporation and Compliance Solutions, which provide legal services and banking compliance software, content, and lien solutions to mainly U.S. businesses.
Wolters Kluwer spokesperson Frank Ready said that the LR and ELM businesses serve similar customer needs in different geographies and segments of the market. For example, LR’s Legisway serves corporate legal departments in small and medium sized companies, while ELM serves legal departments in large corporations.
“The change will bring our legal tech assets closer together to enhance cross-selling and product innovation opportunities,” he said.
Martin O’Malley, CEO of the LR division, will continue in that role. Raja Sengupta, executive vice president and general manager of ELM Solutions, will continue to run that business as an integral part of the LR division, Ready told me.
