Press release
LONDON—31 May, 2022—Bain & Company today announces the acquisition of Proxima, a UK-headquartered global leader in procurement and supply chain consulting.
Bain & Company’s acquisition of Proxima comes at a critical moment for the procurement sector, as companies worldwide strive to master an uncertain era of mounting geopolitical and economic challenges, from war in Ukraine to an upsurge in global inflation, which are combining to disrupt supply chains and business models.
Coupled with the imperative to achieve net zero carbon emissions, these disruptions and uncertainties have elevated procurement and supply chain to CEO and Board-level issues, making expertise in these areas a critical enabler for businesses to unlock their full potential—driving profitable growth and building resilience and security of supply for customers, while also meeting key commitments to the wider global population and the planet.
Proxima’s deep expertise and proven track record will make it and its experts a critical part of Bain’s delivery of procurement and supply chain solutions to existing and new clients as they seek strategies and solutions to master these increasingly crucial challenges.
Following completion today of the deal with Bain, Proxima will continue to operate independently as part of Bain’s specialist procurement implementation service line—delivering procurement solutions to clients for both short and long-term engagements.
Together, the firms will leverage their combined expertise and services to strengthen Bain & Company’s existing procurement services and offer clients differentiated, cost-effective, end-to-end procurement solutions, ranging from strategy to implementation—connecting client businesses’ strategy with the realities of front-end delivery. With this deal and following the acquisition of ArcBlue earlier this year, Bain & Company has established a global capability dedicated to providing clients with fully-scaled support across all areas of procurement and supply chain.
“Procurement is more vital than ever to enabling companies to achieve resilient and sustained business growth while also meeting their net zero agendas,” said Hernan Saenz, head of Bain & Company’s Global Performance Improvement practice. “We believe this acquisition will further strengthen our ability to meet the needs of clients around the globe for end-to-end procurement transformation across strategy, design, technology, capability development, and execution.”
Founded in 1994, Proxima provides world-class expert procurement advisory services and transformative strategic procurement solutions to a client list ranging from some of the world’s largest businesses to fast-growing, high-potential small and medium-sized enterprises across a wide range of supply categories, and in sectors from aviation to government, from manufacturing to banking.
“We are enormously excited to be joining forces with Bain & Company, a world-leading, top-tier global consulting group, to build on and reinforce the extraordinary success our teams have achieved at Proxima,” said Gareth Evans, chief executive of Proxima. “At Proxima, we have built a pre-eminent force for change and success in procurement. This deal allows us to take that to even greater heights for our clients, partners and people.”
Proxima’s philosophy is to make far-reaching and meaningful procurement change happen for its clients, across more effective cost management, optimisation of technologies and procurement processes, the building of risk management programs and more. Proxima seeks to elevate clients’ ambition to unlock transformational value and secure rapid and high-impact results.
“The business imperative for the Bain and Proxima integrated strategy to delivery capability has never been stronger,” said Michael Garstka, London-based Bain & Company Senior Partner, who will serve as Executive Chairman of Proxima after completion of the deal. “I am looking forward to working with Gareth and his team at Proxima and my colleagues at Bain to bring this solution to our clients.”
Media contacts: To arrange an interview, contact Gary.Duncan@Bain.com or Dan.Pinkney@Bain.com
Notes to Editors:
About Bain & Company
Bain & Company is a global consultancy that helps the world’s most ambitious change makers define the future.
Across 65 cities in 40 countries, we work alongside our clients as one team with a shared ambition to achieve extraordinary results, outperform the competition, and redefine industries. We complement our tailored, integrated expertise with a vibrant ecosystem of digital innovators to deliver better, faster, and more enduring outcomes. Our 10-year commitment to invest more than $1 billion in pro bono services brings our talent, expertise, and insight to organizations tackling today’s urgent challenges in education, racial equity, social justice, economic development, and the environment. We earned a platinum rating from EcoVadis, the leading platform for environmental, social, and ethical performance ratings for global supply chains, putting us in the top 1% of all companies. Since our founding in 1973, we have measured our success by the success of our clients, and we proudly maintain the highest level of client advocacy in the industry.
About Proxima
Proxima is a world-leading procurement and supply chain consultancy headquartered in London and serving clients in the UK, Europe and across the United States. At Proxima, we help our clients to spend their money wisely and the world’s leading businesses trust Proxima to deliver quality procurement services, enabling business performance in the world around you. We provide an extensive suite of procurement consultancy services focused on cost optimization, procurement transformation, supply chain sustainability, and decarbonization, and are famous for our results delivery. Our work is recognized by the FT leading management consulting awards in the UK and the by Forbes Americas best management consulting firms in the US. People are at our core, and our Proxima with Purpose initiative guides many internal initiatives including our DE&I framework, alignment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and our commitment to the Science Based Targets Initiative.