Happy New Year! Over the past few months, I have shared that TASC is in our growth era. After a few years of pausing our acquisition efforts, I recently made a move to reactivate and reenergize our acquisition ventures. As most business experts concede and our own experience shows, growing through acquisition is a good way to accelerate growth. I am pleased to share that Ernie Harris will be our Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and will lead our acquisition efforts.
Ernie brings an incredible wealth of experience in employee benefits. In fact, Ernie knows acquisitions all too well, because he joined TASC nearly 5 years ago as part of one of our largest Third-Party Administrator (TPA) acquisitions. In his seven and a half years with the TPA we acquired, Ernie gained extensive experience with sales, marketing, product development and operations. Ernie has also led corporate development efforts for Ameritrade, buying other broker dealers. And at Maestro Health, he helped with the acquisition of other administrators and employee benefit businesses. Ernie knows acquisitions!
Employee benefits is a hot market. We see all the buyers that want to get into the employee benefits space that frankly don’t really understand employee benefits. They don’t understand the suppliers, underlying technologies, offerings, compliance, customer management and administration processing. It’s a complex business that isn’t easy…take it from someone that knows.
TASC enters the market with a different value proposition. With have 50 years of experience in employee benefits and have a history of acquiring over 25 employee benefit books of business and TPAs. We have the broadest set of offerings in our industry and have spent the last several years investing in our technology, and are now running on the best technology in the business. Plus, we are a privately held company that is not part of a big public corporate machine. We have a relationship with our customers and employees and care about how we impact our communities.
We pay competitive prices like everyone else, but we’re a midwestern family business, or as Ernie says, “TASC is generally a very kind company. Everyone is kind and caring.” So not only do we offer compensation to the owners for their years of work, TASC also offers a soft landing for their valued employees that sometimes even includes family members. We’re unique in the acquisition sphere in that all acquired employees get a seat on the bus with TASC. That’s right, we offer employment to all the employees of each acquisition. Ernie himself has benefited from this arrangement.
When we acquire a business, our intent is to retain the employees; not all acquiring companies can say that. We know that when we acquire a business, we get an instant addition of good people that typically are experienced in employee benefits. They know the industry, the customers and the business. They are a perfect addition to the TASC team.
Plus, remember we are privately held. We understand owners. We know the connection that owners have after investing years in building their business. We also get entrepreneurs, their drive to make a difference and their unique relationships with their employees and customers. Yes, it is certainly a financial decision to sell but it is an emotional one too.
TASC is ready to jump into the acquisition market. We are in the market for employee benefit books of business and TPAs. So, if you or someone you know is looking to get out of the TPA business, give Ernie Harris, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development a call today!
