logo image
  • News
    • People Moves
    • Deal Wins
    • Demand Drivers
    • M&A and Funding
    • Financial Results
    • Technology
    • Academia
    • Industry News
    • Features
    • Machine Translation
    • — Divider —
    • Slator Pro
    • — Divider —
    • Press Releases
    • Sponsored Content
  • Data & Research
    • Research Reports & Pro Guides
    • Language Industry Investor Map
    • Real-Time Charts of Listed LSPs
    • Language Service Provider Index
  • Podcasts & Videos
  • Events
    • Design Thinking – February 2021
    • — Divider —
    • SlatorCon Coverage
    • Other Events
  • Directory
  • RFP Center
  • Jobs
MENU
  • News
    • People Moves
    • Deal Wins
    • Demand Drivers
    • M&A and Funding
    • Financial Results
    • Technology
    • Academia
    • Industry News
    • Features
    • Machine Translation
    • — Divider —
    • Slator Pro
    • — Divider —
    • Press Releases
    • Sponsored Content
  • Data & Research
    • Research Reports & Pro Guides
    • Language Industry Investor Map
    • Real-Time Charts of Listed LSPs
    • Language Service Provider Index
  • Podcasts & Videos
  • Events
    • Design Thinking – February 2021
    • — Divider —
    • SlatorCon Coverage
    • Other Events
  • Directory
  • RFP Center
  • Jobs

Advertise on Slator! Download the 2021 Online Media Kit Now

  • Slator Market Intelligence
  • Slator Advertising Services
  • Slator Advisory
  • Login
Search
Generic filters
Exact matches only
Advertisement
TransPerfect’s Scary Good 2018

2 years ago

January 14, 2019

TransPerfect’s Scary Good 2018

Financial Results ·

by Florian Faes

On January 14, 2019

2 years ago
Financial Results ·

by Florian Faes

On January 14, 2019

TransPerfect’s Scary Good 2018

TransPerfect is now generating every quarter what only a handful of other language service providers manage to bill in a full-year. CEO Phil Shawe told Slator that the New York-based language services and technology provider closed 2018 with a record-setting USD 705m in sales, with Q4 2018 contributing nearly USD 200m.

At 14.7% top line growth in 2018 (almost all of it organic), the company actually accelerated compared to the previous year, when revenues had increased 12.5% to USD 615m. By organically adding USD 90m in just one year, TransPerfect is now capturing a meaningful share of overall market growth. The company’s accelerating momentum might cause some soul-searching in the boardrooms of industry rivals, many of whom either grow from a much lower base or have to buy growth via M&A.

Shawe did not comment on profitability other than stating that EBITDA rose 23% in 2018. This would put the company’s earnings at an estimated USD 80–100m in 2018 based on comparables previously disclosed. TransPerfect also continues to staff up and now counts around 5,000 full-time employees.

Advertisement

Slator 2019 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report

Data and Research, Slator reports
34-page report. Language industry M&A and startup funding. Transaction valuations, trade sales, financial backing, private equity influence, main rationale, seller verticals, geographical analysis, startup funding analysis.
$450 BUY NOW

Remarkably, the company’s protracted ownership battle, which came to an end in May 2018, barely registered in its growth trajectory as clients stayed loyal. Shawe remembers reassuring staff during that period that “if there’s a fight in the Disney boardroom about who’s going to control Disney, people don’t stop taking their kids to ride Space Mountain.”

Growth was broad-based and shows how TransPerfect’s early bets on regulated industries continue to pay off. The company posted strong growth across the e-discovery (26%), clinical trials (45%), forensic technology (94%), and managed document and legal staffing (29%) business lines.

“If there’s a fight in the Disney boardroom about who’s going to control Disney, people don’t stop taking their kids to ride Space Mountain” — Phil Shawe, CEO, TransPerfect

Technology revenue from TransPerfect’s GlobalLink suite of translation management and website proxy localization products were up 21% in 2018.

While TransPerfect generates a little less than two thirds of its revenues in North America, other regions are playing catch-up. The company said sales in the Nordic region grew 46%, while Latin America and Asia-Pacific were up 58% and 32% respectively.

Asked about areas of future growth, Shawe said that, in addition to a number of other areas, they are putting quite a “bit of investment in the media localization space,” where they are about to launch a new subtitling product. Of course, media localization has been one of the fastest growing localization verticals of the past couple of years.

Feeding the Funnel

Growth is driven by what is arguably the language industry’s largest and most aggressive salesforce. In a 2017 interview with Slator, Shawe explained how all of the company’s salespeople are on commission-based compensation packages with a relatively low base but significant upside. As of early 2019, the company employs over 400 salespeople who carry quotas, Shawe told Slator.

“You have to put a lot of activity into the top of the funnel to get to the stage where we have an RFP with 10 deals so you can win two of them”

As for their sales process, there is little magic to it but a lot of leg work — “everything from old-fashioned mailers and cold-calling, to email to warm calls, and proactively asking for referrals within the organizations we serve, to being on the street and hitting the floor at trade shows,” Shawe said.

“You have to put a lot of activity into the top of the funnel to get to the stage where we have an RFP with 10 deals so you can win two of them,” he added.

Send Your Pitch Books

After years of watching M&A from the sidelines, TransPerfect got back into dealmaking in 2018 with three small bolt-on acquisitions, buying machine translation provider Diego Bartolome’s Tauyou, Matt Arney’s China-focused LSP TranslateNow, and Berlin-based app localizer Applanga.

“We would be happy to take on a larger acquisition”

“We would be happy to take on a larger acquisition,” Shawe said, adding that “it wouldn’t necessarily be just for top-line growth.” He said that, as a private company, TransPerfect was not beholden “to generate a certain amount of growth in a certain amount of time” to please investors.

The CEO would not comment on which specific areas they were looking at in M&A. That said, an unshackled TransPerfect is going to be on the distribution list of any sell-side advisor sending out pitch books in 2019.

Far from the Precipice

Shawe’s take on neural machine translation is straightforward: It is simply another translation productivity tool that is now being integrated into the supply chain. While in the past it might not have been financially viable to localize into certain languages, it now is. Declining unit rates, in short, lead to buyers ordering more, a view shared by Nestle’s Translation Manager, among others.

“I don’t think the point where the work that the vast majority of our 5,000 people, who are project managers, do is at the precipice of technological obsolescence”

What about Google, Amazon, and other big tech companies rapidly moving into customized machine translation? Shawe pointed out that delivering low or no-cost machine translation to people using cloud-based computer technology is quite a bit different from the services provided by the project-management-centered language industry. “I don’t think the point where the work that the vast majority of our 5,000 people, who are project managers, do is at the precipice of technological obsolescence,” he said.

Commenting on the mood in the company after it emerged from years of acrimonious litigation, Shawe said, “We just really felt like we had a collective weight lifted off our shoulders back in May 2018. [We now have] a unified management team — and dispensing with the ownership-related litigation is now fully behind us and in the rearview mirror. [Employees] do not have to live with the fear that a competitor or a foreign government is going to buy us for our technology and put them out of jobs.”

Image: Phil Shawe at SlatorCon New York 2017

TAGS

Applangaclinical trialDiego Bartolomee-discoveryGlobalLinklegal translationslife sciencesMatt ArneyPhil ShaweSalesTranslateNowTransPerfect
SHARE
Florian Faes

By Florian Faes

Co-Founder of Slator. Linguist, business developer, and mountain runner. Based in the beautiful lakeside city of Zurich, Switzerland.

Advertisement

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SLATOR WEEKLY

Language Industry Intelligence
In Your Inbox. Every Friday

SUBSCRIBE

SlatorSweepSlatorPro
ResearchRFP CENTER

PUBLISH

PRESS RELEASEDIRECTORY LISTING
JOB ADEVENT LISTING

Bespoke advisory including speaking, briefings and M&A

SLATOR ADVISORY
Advertisement

Featured Reports

See all
Slator 2020 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report

Slator 2020 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report

by Slator

Slator 2021 Data-for-AI Market Report

Slator 2021 Data-for-AI Market Report

by Slator

Slator 2020 Medtech Translation and Localization Report

Slator 2020 Medtech Translation and Localization Report

by Slator

Pro Guide: Sales and Marketing for Language Service Providers

Pro Guide: Sales and Marketing for Language Service Providers

by Slator

Press Releases

See all
XTRF Launches a Bi-Monthly Free Networking Event for Localization Professionals

XTRF Launches a Bi-Monthly Free Networking Event for Localization Professionals

by XTRF

150 Million Words Translated: the German EU Council Presidency Translator Sets New Records

150 Million Words Translated: the German EU Council Presidency Translator Sets New Records

by Tilde

BeLazy Announces Full Automation for Plunet

BeLazy Announces Full Automation for Plunet

by BeLazy

Upcoming Events

See All
  1. Memsource MT Post-Editing Pricing Models Webinar

    Pricing Models for MT Post-Editing Workshop

    by Memsource

    · February 3

    Hear a panel of innovative localization professionals share different approaches for MT post-editing pricing.

    More info FREE

Featured Companies

See all
Text United

Text United

Memsource

Memsource

Wordbank

Wordbank

Protranslating

Protranslating

Seprotec

Seprotec

Versacom

Versacom

SDL

SDL

Smartling

Smartling

Lingotek

Lingotek

XTM International

XTM International

Smartcat

Smartcat

Translators without Borders

Translators without Borders

STAR Group

STAR Group

memoQ Translation Technologies

memoQ Translation Technologies

Advertisement

Popular articles

Why Netflix Shut Down Its Translation Portal Hermes

Why Netflix Shut Down Its Translation Portal Hermes

by Esther Bond

The Slator 2020 Language Service Provider Index

The Slator 2020 Language Service Provider Index

by Slator

Top Language Industry Quotes of 2020

Top Language Industry Quotes of 2020

by Monica Jamieson

SlatorPod: The Weekly Language Industry Podcast

connect with us

footer logo

Slator makes business sense of the language services and technology market.

Our Company

  • Support
  • About us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

Subscribe to the Slator Weekly

Language Industry Intelligence
In Your Inbox. Every Friday

© 2021 Slator. All rights reserved.

Sign up to the Slator Weekly

Join over 13,000 subscribers and get the latest language industry intelligence every Friday

Your information will never be shared with third parties. No Spam.