Navigant Consulting, Inc.NCI continues to expand its Disputes, Forensics & Legal Technology segment in Asia with the appointment of two new managing directors, Neill Poole in Hong Kong and Gagan Puri in Singapore.
Neill Poole has 30 years of experience as a forensic accountant and has been based in Hong Kong for over 15 years. Before joining Navigant, he held senior positions in various consulting firms. He was responsible for developing the firms' investigations and litigation support along with expert witness practices.
Gagan Puri has worked in the Big Four firms for around 20 years. He has worked in forensic, dispute, risk consulting and advisory matters across 29 countries. Puri also has experience in large global investigations with cross border ramifications.
Their expertise will enable Navigant to provide its customer enhanced services. These experts will help clients in a wide range of commercial litigation, international arbitration, and investor-state disputes by acting as expert witnesses or advisors. By establishing a strong local team to serve clients across Asia, the company will be well positioned to expand its presence in these markets.
Management is taking steps to restructure the business in order to better align capacity with demand. Utilising its strong cash flow generation capacity, the company continues to return capital to its shareholders and making investments in technology, new capabilities and client channels. At the same time, Navigant is focusing on corporate development efforts to build a very robust pipeline of investment opportunities which is in line with its growth strategy. All these measures augur well for its long-term growth.
However, Navigant has grossly underperformed the Zacks categorised Consulting Services industry in the last three months with an average decline of 13.4% against a gain of 3.8% for the latter. Navigant continues to face challenges on both domestic and international fronts. This is primarily attributable to the difficulties in managing and staffing foreign operations, relatively limited new assignments, currency fluctuations and regulatory stringencies due to the uncertainty in the global economy. We expect these management upgradations to help it outperform the industry in the upcoming quarters.
Article was written by Zacks Equity research