Korn Ferry history

Expansion into Europe was accomplished in 1972 by a merger with the British search firm G.K. Dickinson Ltd., and the company also opened an office in Japan a few months later.

In 1973 Korn Ferry formed Tokyo, Japan-based Korn Ferry International Japan.

With the opening in 1975 of Korn Ferry International Singapore, the company had 41 offices in 20 countries.

In 1977 they acquired the Mexico City firm Hazzard & Associados.

In 1978 they opened offices in Malaysia and Hong Kong, and acquired the UK firm John Stork.

By the end of 1979, as it celebrated its tenth anniversary, Korn/Ferry had made partners of 59 of its senior recruiters.

In 1989, the firm's revenues exceeded $100 million for the first time.

In May 1991 Lester Korn retired as chairman and Richard Ferry, the president and CEO, assumed the additional role of chairman.

In a move that greatly boosted its European presence, in 1993 Korn/Ferry purchased Carre Orban International of England for $20 million.

In 1997 the company began to offer an Internet-based recruitment service in California, initially called Korn/Ferry: Careerlink.

In August 1998, Korn Ferry partnered with The Wall Street Journal to start Futurestep.com, aimed at the middle management level.

Korn/Ferry had begun contemplating going public again and, after a slight delay, issued stock on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999.

In 2000 it acquired the London-based PA Consulting Group for an estimated $35M. In 2000 it purchased Boston-based financial services search firm Westgate Group, and Canada-based Pratzer & Partners Inc.

By 2001 Futurestep had been rolled out to 22 countries; it incurred worldwide losses of $60 million through January 31, 2001.

By 2003 the company had market capitalisation of £33 million mainly through acquisition, with offices in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and New York; together with training and advisory divisions.

Elite money managers, advisors and institutions have relied on us to lower risk and improve performance since 2004.

In 2005 the firm moved its regional head office to Shanghai, China, and had a total of 73 offices in forty countries.

In 2006 Korn Ferry acquired leadership development tools firm Lominger Limited of Golden Valley for $24M.

Whitehead Mann was a London-based executive search firm was acquired by Korn/Ferry International in June 2009.

Since 2013, KFY’s ROIC has improved from 8% to 13% TTM. Meanwhile, its economic earnings, the true cash flows of the business, improved from just under $1 million to $81 million TTM.

In late 2015, KFY acquired Hay Group for $479 million.

Importantly, KFY’s RPO segment has grown from 15% of revenue in fiscal 2017 to 19% TTM, as noted above.

NSP’s business is focused more on payroll processing, benefit plan administration, and HR software for small-to-medium sized businesses and RHI’s business is predominately focused on providing temporary staffing (75% of revenue in 2018). Korn Ferry does very little in either of these markets.

Importantly, KFY’s RPO segment has grown from 15% of revenue in fiscal 2017 to 19% TTM, as noted above. It has achieved high double-digit YoY growth in each of the past two years, as well as the six months ended October 31, 2019.