March 20, 2017
Northern Pacific Group Announces the Acquisition of Lucy Software by United Language Group
Minneapolis, MN, US (March 20, 2017) – Northern Pacific Group, a Minnesota-based private equity investment firm, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Lucy Software by their portfolio company, United Language Group, Inc. (ULG). The acquisition is the fourth made by ULG, which acquired Merrill Brink International and KJ International Resources in June of 2016 and Language Select last December.
United Language Group is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and provides translation, localization and interpretation services to clients in the life sciences, manufacturing, travel/hospitality, government and legal/regulatory markets.
Lucy was founded in 2006 and has built a formidable, specialized language services technology offering for global companies facing multilingual challenges. ULG will leverage Lucy’s SAP localization and MT capabilities to better serve its international clients as part of its growth to roughly $85 million in global revenues in 2017.
Northern Pacific Group invested equity in partnership with Yukon Partners and Hamilton Lane, who also provided mezzanine financing. In addition, Bell Capital Finance and The PrivateBank provided a senior credit facility. Fredrickson & Byron and Pinsent Masons served as legal counsel to Northern Pacific Group.
“Lucy Software stands out in the market for the advanced MT capabilities they have developed, as well as SAP localization solutions that help enterprises scale globally. ULG is incredibly fortunate to welcome Lucy into our family of partner companies,” said Kristen Giovanis, President of United Language Group. “Lucy Software has an exceptional set of services and technologies and they will be able to build on ULG’s sales and marketing network, operational expertise, and global reach.”
“We are thrilled to join United Language Group and add our know-how to the family of companies,” said Daniel Grasmick, co-founder of Lucy Software. “We see significant opportunities for Lucy together with ULG as we expand into new markets and extend MT and SAP localization capabilities to ULG clients. Lucy’s existing clients will also benefit greatly from ULG’s broad, global portfolio of services due to this merger.”
The transaction was finalized on March 14, 2017.
About United Language Group
United Language Group is one of the largest translation and localization providers in the world, with offices based in 5 countries on 3 continents. ULG applies innovative technology and language expertise to drive translation and localization quality for clients around the world, in industries like life sciences, legal, IT, finance, and manufacturing. To learn more, please visit www.unitedlanguagegroup.com.
About Northern Pacific Group
Northern Pacific Group is a Minnesota-based growth equity investment firm focused on making non-control investments in growing technology and business services companies. Northern Pacific Group seeks to partner with ownership groups and management teams in order to add value beyond the growth capital provided. For additional information, please visit www.northernpacificgroup.com.
About Yukon Partners
Yukon Partners is an independent and unaffiliated mezzanine firm primarily serving middle market private equity sponsored business transactions with a typical investment range of $10 to $40 million in the U.S. and Canada. The transactions in which Yukon invests include buyouts, growth and platform strategies, recapitalizations, mergers/acquisitions, and public-to-private buyouts. Yukon is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For more information, please visit www.yukonpartners.com.
