Bain & Company

Bain & Company Profile & Stats

Bain & Company is one of the biggest and most respected names in consulting. Yet from the beginning, Bainies (as they’re known in the industry) aimed to do things a little differently from their competitors. The firm bases its fees on the financial results it achieves for its clients, acquiring contracts through word-of-mouth referrals, and following the belief that consultants should deliver ‘results, not reports’. Known for its work on everything from M&A to private equity investments, Boston headquartered Bain & Company employs over 5,000 in 42 offices, across 27 different countries.

The London office was established in 1979, and services a large range of corporate clients – more than 40% of the FTSE 100, in fact. In addition to the London branch, the firm has spread its wings across the Continent, setting up shop in Amsterdam, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Paris, Rome, Stockholm and Zurich. Bain now has more offices in Europe than in any other region; the upshot of which being more revenue comes from its Continental operations than either the North American or Asian markets.

That said, Bain is not satisfied with leaving the rest of the globe untapped. Like its consulting peers, Bain has been targeting booming areas, such as India and the Middle East, for business. But unlike its competitors, the firm is specifically targeting strategy work, rather than limiting its Indian offerings to outsourcing.

When Bill Bain left the Boston Consulting Group in 1973, he took with him a number of consultants and clients to found Bain & Company. Starting out as a three person operation in his basement, the company grew quickly, expanding into the UK market only six years later. By 1983, the firm had begun investing in its own clients and soon after began a policy of accepting equity as part of its compensation with its PE clients. In 1984, Bain Capital was launched as a spin off, and currently holds over $50 billion in assets, having invested in more than 250 companies. It is a completely separate company to Bain & Co and shares neither governance nor ownership.

In 1994, Bain became the first consulting company to establish a private equity practice. It is currently the market leader, having worked on more than half of all US and European private equity transactions worth over $1 billion in the last 10 years. This hugely successful practice provides clients – mostly leveraged buyout firms and hedge funds – with fund strategy, sector screening and deal generation, due diligence, portfolio company performance improvement and exit planning. Bain has, in part, these over performing clients to thank for its strong reputation: its clients have historically outperformed the stock market 4 to 1... at least until now! So not to rest on its laurels, Bain also implemented a clever brand reinvention strategy to help it gain greater name recognition.

Around 50% of Bain’s clients are featured among the Global 2000; the remaining are mostly private equity, small and mid-sized companies. The firm’s diverse clients hail from numerous industries, spanning aerospace and defence, automotive, consumer products, energy and utilities, financial services, health care, industrial products, media, non-profit, retail, technology, telecommunications and transportation, and include a mix of multinational firms and global companies.

Not to be out done in the altruistic stakes, Bain founded the affiliate the Bridgespan Group, in 2000, to customise management strategy approaches for non-profit clients, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Diabetes UK, Save the Children and the UCLA Johnson Cancer Centre Foundation. Around 15% of Bain’s staff rotate into Bridgespan for 6 month periods to gain experience in the sector.

In London, community support is encouraged, with an integrated community involvement programme, Bain Cares, which provides strategic and operational advice to Business Action on homelessness. Additionally, staffers take part in educational efforts in local schools by tutoring and mentoring students, planting trees, painting homeless shelters etc. And twice a year, the firm holds a ‘community impact day’, during which all employees participate in some form of community work.