Kroll is a corporate investigations and risk consulting firm based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1972.
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History
Kroll was founded in 1972 by Jules B. Kroll as a consultant to corporate purchasing departments. The company focused on helping clients improve operations by uncovering kickbacks, fraud or other forms of corruption.
Kroll began its line of investigative work in the financial sector in the 1980s, when corporations in New York City approached Kroll to profile investors, suitors and takeover targets, with special attention to any perceived connections to disreputable organizations, suspicious business practices, personality and integrity issues, or any kind of corporate malfeasance. In the 1990s, Kroll expanded into forensic accounting, background screening, drug testing, electronic data recovery and market intelligence.
In June 1993, A.I.G. "became one of the largest investors in Kroll, after it retained a minority interest in the firm."
In 1997, with annual revenues of approximately $60 million, Kroll merged with vehicle armoring company O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt. The new entity, The Kroll-O'Gara Company, became a public company listed on NASDAQ as "KROG."
In December 1998, Kroll acquired Schiff & Associates, Inc., a small security engineering and consulting firm based in Bastrop, Texas just outside Austin. The name was changed to Kroll Schiff & Associates then Kroll Security Services Group and finally to Kroll Security Group.
In February 2001, Kroll expanded its working relationship with the insurance company, A.I.G., offering through their Private Client group personal security services to high-net-worth individuals and their families. "Under its working arrangement with AIG, Kroll is called in to supervise crisis management when an incident occurs. In its expanded role the company will now provide those services to private individual holders of AIG policies, providing global protection, for which there is an ever increasing need."
In August 2001, the O'Gara vehicle armoring businesses were sold to Armor Holdings. The company name was changed to Kroll Inc. and its ticker symbol became "KROL." Kroll ended the year with more than $200 million in annual revenues.
In 2002, Kroll acquired Kelly McCann's firm Crucible. In September 2008, Crucible was acquired by its management and now operates privately. Earlier in 2002, "Kroll's US corporate advisory subsidiary was given the monumental challenge of restructuring Enron."
In July 2004, Kroll was acquired by professional services firm Marsh & McLennan Companies in a $1.9 billion transaction. Over the next few years, Kroll began selling off subsidiaries in order to focus on its core business lines.
In June 2008, Jules Kroll left Kroll, Inc. He tried to buy Kroll Inc. back from MMC. When that bid failed, he launched in 2010 Kroll Bond Ratings and K2 Global Consulting with his son Jeremy. Jules and Jeremy Kroll created K2 Intelligence in 2009.
In August 2010, Kroll was acquired by Altegrity, Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.13 billion. Altegrity's family of companies also included USIS and Explore. It is principally owned by Providence Equity Partners. Altegrity declared bankruptcy in 2015.
Kroll was bought by Corporate Risk Holdings, LLC, which is also the parent company of two separately managed information service businesses: HireRight and Kroll Ontrack.
On October 21, 2016, Carlyle Group-owned LDiscovery acquired Kroll Ontrack in an all cash transaction valued at roughly $410 million. , from which time Kroll Ontrack operated as a separate company.
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Geographic locations
Kroll is headquartered in New York City, and has offices in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Eden Prairie, Nashville, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, Loveland and Washington, D.C., as well as Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Miami office serves as the headquarters for Kroll's operations in Latin America, where it also has offices in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
Kroll's London office serves as headquarters for the Europe, Middle East & Africa region (EMEA), which also has offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and Milan. Their office in Dubai provides risk consultantcy services to the Gulf area.
Kroll's Asian operations are carried out by offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, Beijing, Singapore and Tokyo.
Range of operations
The following are core Kroll activities:
Ontrack and electronic data recovery
Kroll acquired a computer forensics, electronic discovery, and data recovery company named Ontrack. On January 31, 2006 Kroll Ontrack Inc. announced that it has completed the acquisition of Ibas Holdings ASA, a Norwegian-based provider of data recovery, data erasure and computer forensics services. Ibas became a wholly owned subsidiary of Kroll Ontrack AS, a newly formed Norwegian entity. Prior to its acquisition by Kroll Ontrack Inc., Ibas had expanded its own geographic reach and service offerings through its acquisition of Vogon International, a privately held U.K. company specializing in computer forensics, electronic discovery, and data recovery.
In October 2016, Kroll sold the Kroll Ontrack business to LDiscovery LLC. forming KrolLDiscovery, which now operates independently of Kroll.
Background screening
Kroll's Background Screening division provides screening services for areas such as employment, supplier selection, investment placement and institutional admissions. Kroll's Background Screening division also includes the Kroll Fraud Solutions unit, which specializes in identity theft protection and identity restoration services.
Security consulting
Kroll offers consulting services through Kroll Security Group, its Security Consulting and Security Engineering & Design division. These services include threat assessments, vulnerability assessments, physical security surveys, security disaster planning, policy and procedure development, staffing studies, etc.
Historical cases
The Heroin Trail case
In 1987, in the prominent First Amendment case over The Heroin Trail stories in New York Newsday, attorney Floyd Abrams enlisted Kroll's help to find an eyewitness: "But was it conceivable that we could come up with an eyewitness who could be of help? I called Jules Kroll, the CEO of Kroll Associates, the nation's most acclaimed investigative firm, to ask him if he could inquire, through the extensive range of former law enforcement officials employed by him, whether Karaduman was known to be a drug trafficker in Istanbul." Kroll came through: two weeks into the trial the firm produced Faraculah Arras, who was prepared to testify he was involved in one of Karaduman's drug deals. "I was stunned," recalled Abrams.
Abrams used Kroll again in 1998 to investigate claims by CNN's Newsstand documentary that sarin nerve gas had been used in Vietnam in 1970 as part of Operation Tailwind.
The John Fredriksen oil theft case
Kroll assisted in the trial of Norwegian shipping tycoon, John Fredriksen, at the end of the 1980s.
WTC and Sears Tower security
Kroll were responsible for revamping security at the World Trade Center after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. They also took on responsibility for security at Chicago's Sears Tower following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Just prior to the September 11 attacks, Kroll Inc., with the guidance of Jerome Hauer, at the time the Managing director of their Crisis and Consulting Management Group, hired former FBI special investigator John P. O'Neill, who specialized in the Al-Qaeda network held responsible for the 1993 bombing, to head the security at the WTC complex. O'Neill died in the attacks.
Identity protection
Kroll entered into a joint marketing agreement with legal service plan provider LegalShield (formerly Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.) in 2003, to distribute an identity theft product to consumers, called the Identity Theft Shield, the first time Kroll offered a service to individuals. As of June 30, 2006, Kroll had over 560,000 customers, according to LegalShield's quarterly report. In addition to the LegalShield subscribers, Kroll's Identity Theft Shield serves about 500,000 other consumers.
See also
- ArmorGroup
- Eurasia Group
- Le Beck International
- Pinkerton
- Stodacom
- Datarama
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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