Leading Danish management consultancy firm H&B joins Eraneos

Just a month after buying a Swiss firm, Eraneos has now closed a considerably larger deal in the Nordics, picking up leading Danish player Hildebrandt & Brandi.

The deal marks the entry of Eraneos in the Nordic market, with Hildebrandt & Brandi currently employing around 80 consultants across offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus.

Established in 2004 by Steen Hildebrandt and Søren Brandi, their eponymous firm Hildebrandt & Brandi (locally known as H&B) has since its inception established itself as one of Denmark’s leading management consultancies, specialising in strategy, operating model redesign, business transformation, and commercial excellence. The company works for clients across sectors, notably in energy, utilities and financial services.

Oliver Vaterlaus, CEO of Eraneos, described the addition of Hildebrandt & Brandi as an important strategic step in the development of a strong pan-European consultancy. Since being founded in 2021 through a three-way merger, Eraneos has grown to a size of over 1,200 staff in now 9 countries.

“Hildebrandt & Brandi has a strong position among Danish executives and is, like Eraneos, built around a client-centric approach. With the merger, we combine the best of both worlds – local market understanding and international best practice. It is an important strategic step towards becoming the preferred European consulting group within strategy, transformation and technology,” said Vaterlaus.

Alongside a geographic expansion, Hildebrandt & Brandi will provide a boost to the strategy and transformation offerings of Eraneos. “Our goal is to support clients holistically in their transformation journeys by seamlessly integrating business expertise with technological knowledge. With H&B’s strong strategic capabilities, we will further expand this positioning together.”

Earlier this year, Eraneos closed a deal in Switzerland, and before that, the firm completed multiple transactions in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.

Oliver Vaterlaus and Søren Brandi

A move for clients and staff

Commenting on the joining of forces, H&B Co-Founder and Managing Partner Brandi stated: “Joining Eraneos is a natural next step in our development and opens up new opportunities for our clients. By combining our strengths, we can offer our clients a broader range of digital solutions and international expertise.”

“The merger gives us access to digital and international capabilities that strengthen our ability to meet clients’ needs going forward. Eraneos is built on a strong digital profile and has significantly strengthened its cyber, AI and analytics capabilities in recent years. These competencies will be an asset in the future advice of our clients who are facing increasingly complex and international issues.”

At the same time, Brandi also pointed at the benefits for the firm’s people. “Several younger leaders of H&B have now become equity partners of Eraneos. We can therefore say that we have succeeded in the generational change that has been on our minds and that we have worked on in a structured way in recent years.”

“We are future-proofing H&B by anchoring ourselves more broadly and deeply in an international set-up with a larger circle of partners and based on our strengths – strategy and transformation.”

Meanwhile, for consultants, the merger creates exciting global career opportunities and the possibility to work on larger, international projects.

Danish consulting deals

The deal continues a trend of leading Danish consulting brands becoming part of an international group. Best known previous examples are probably those of Valcon joining First Consulting (the group eventually retained the Valcon brand), Prokura joining Kearney, and Qvartz joining Bain & Company.