Ceridian’s latest acquisition beefs up HR offer across APAC

Ceridian, a leader in global human capital management technology, has announced its decision to acquire Ascender, a leading payroll and HR solutions provider in Asia Pacific Japan (APJ). 

This acquisition, which will merge Ceridian’s global scale and award-winning software platforms with Ascender’s industry expertise and innovative processes, will provide Asia Pacific with the most comprehensive payroll and human capital management solutions in the region. 

HR/payroll consolidation in Asia Pacific

Ascender provides more than 1,200 global brands (serving 1.3 million employees) with leading payroll and HR capabilities, and with this acquisition, Ceridian will be able to serve a combined 1,500 customers and 2.5 million employees across 30 APAC countries, including Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.  

Add to this, Ascender’s deep industry expertise across all verticals, including higher education and government, and this acquisition will “strengthen our leadership in the APJ region, accelerate our global growth strategy, and deliver even greater value to our customers”, states Ceridian’s CEO, David Ossip.  

Furthermore, Ceridian will have the opportunity to deliver additional value to Ascender’s customers through the Dayforce platform’s full-suite HCM capabilities, including workforce management, payroll, and time and attendance. 

And with Asia Pacific the fastest growing region for payroll and HCM, Ceridian is uniquely positioned to “support organisational leaders driving transformation in today’s rapidly changing world”, says Stephen Moore, Head of Asia Pacific Japan, Ceridian. 

The companies have entered into a definitive share sale agreement with the transaction expected to close in Q2 20201. 

Ceridian pushes ahead with regional growth

The Ascender acquisition is a further sign of Ceridian's enthusiasm for growth in the region as the company has a proven track record of successfully bringing value-driven organisations into the company. 

Previously, in September 2019, Ceridian acquired RITEQ, an Australia-based leading enterprise workforce management provider, whose management soltions brought the company 325 new clients in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. 

While the company's more recent acquisition of Excelity Global, a Singapore-based leading HCM provider, gave Ceridian considerable geographic expansion as 70% of its client base is in India, and then China, Sngapore, the Philippines and Malaysia. 

The company’s flagship cloud HCM platform provides human resource, payroll, benefits, workforce management, and talent management functionality.