The Client

An international consumer services business, providing market-leading academic writing services, and generating revenues of more than $20m. The Company delivers services to consumers using its international pool of freelance writers. In addition, the Company has a number of corporate clients that rely on its expertise to word website content, marketing campaigns, and business projects.

The Assignment

We were engaged by the Company to value its IP portfolio. The structure was relatively complex as some IP was being utilized across different business streams. The Company was appraising its business strategy and was exploring the transfer of some of its IP to different trading entities to both support expansion and explore a potential divestment of a non-core business stream.

Our Approach

Using our Metisology® approach we performed extensive analysis on how the brands were developed, protected and managed. We utilized our proprietary royalty rate scorecard to benchmark the Company’s brands considering their position both in the specific market segment and the wider consumer services industry.

We identified that the Company utilizes both a customer and supplier database that are critical to its daily operations. The customer database includes detailed analytics that are activity used for direct marketing and we discovered evidence that the database was in fact critical in generating repeat business for the Company and was therefore, hugely valuable.

The Outcome

Our IP Valuation enabled the Company to confidently explore its restructuring options, including a potential IP transfer or sale. Our report was relied on by the Company in its strategic decision making as Management now had a clear indicator of the valuable IP assets that were critical to the future revenues of the business.

IP Assets Valued: Brands, Trade marks, Content-rich, SEO-optimized Websites, Critical Databases