The company was created in 1982 from a merger between M.H. Randall & Partners and Woolcott & Co . In 2005 it acquired Eclipse Translations, a company formed in December 1996. In 2015 it acquired Corporate Translations Inc. , a Connecticut-based life sciences translation and linguistic validation provider for a $70 million in cash. Then in 2017, the company acquired LUZ, Inc., a US-based life sciences language services provider for $82.5 million: the company raised £40 million of the consideration by issuing 12.1m ordinary shares with the rest funded by a $26.3 million banking facility from Barclays.In 2017, RWS purchased Czech-based localization provider Moravia for $320m, more than doubling the size of the group.On 4 November 2020, RWS completed an all-share combination with major competitor SDL, creating the world's largest technology and language services provider. The transaction was valued at approximately £854 million.
