Tag: UK

Livingbridge, the mid-market private equity firm, today announces its investment in rhubarb, the premium food and beverage operator.  The deal is the first investment from its new £660m fund, Livingbridge 6.

Originally established in 1996 as an events business, rhubarb expanded its activities in 2003 to include the operation of lease and concession contracts at iconic, high footfall locations, initially by providing high-end catering at Ascot Racecourse.

Today, the company operates long term contracts at venues including the Sky Garden at the ‘Walkie Talkie’ building in London, the Royal Albert Hall and events at the Goodwood Estate. It also provides bespoke catering solutions at around 600 events per year for a broad range of clients, from high profile charity galas for 2,000 guests to small, intimate dinners in country venues.

With offices in London and Surrey, the firm now employs 248 full time members of staff alongside over 900 temporary staff.

rhubarb is the first investment from the Livingbridge 6 fund, which completed fundraising in September 2016 and targets companies with enterprise values typically between £20m and £125m. The investment in rhubarb is also Livingbridge’s third in the food and drink sector having invested in Pho, the Vietnamese fast casual restaurant in 2012, and Bistrot Pierre, the regional French bistrot group in 2015.

The investment from Livingbridge, will help rhubarb’s continued growth across the UK and internationally with the overall aim of doubling in size in the next four years. In addition, Richard Prosser, who has private equity expertise within the global leisure, travel and tourism industries, will be joining as Chairman on completion of the deal.

PB Jacobse, CEO of rhubarb, said:

“We are very excited to be working with Livingbridge on the next stage of our development, particularly in light of their knowledge of the food and beverage market through their existing investments. We are ideally positioned to benefit from positive market trends and current consumer tastes and, with a good level of visibility over our existing contracts, as well as a strong pipeline of new growth opportunities, we are confident of building on the strong momentum we have generated to date.”

Benoit Broch, Director at Livingbridge said:

“rhubarb’s management team have done a fantastic job in growing the business over recent years, securing a number of high profile contracts and creating a premium, differentiated brand that is highly valued by consumers and businesses alike. The company have long-term contracts at some fantastic locations and a strong pipeline of future growth opportunities and we are very much looking forward to helping them expand their offering both throughout the UK and overseas.”

 

Mid-market private equity firm Livingbridge has invested £23 million in Exclaimer, the largest global provider of email signature software. The investment is the last primary investment from Livingbridge 5, the firm’s £360m fund raised in 2012.

Exclaimer, headquartered in Farnborough, Hampshire, was founded in 2000 by business partners Andrew Millington, Gary Levell and Chris Crawshay and today provides software to over 25,000 customers in more than 100 countries including blue-chip firms such as the BBC, Audi, Sony and McDonalds.

The Group is an accredited Microsoft Gold partner and its products support the full array of Microsoft‘s email solutions including MS Office 365, Microsoft’s rapidly growing cloud deployed business platform. Exclaimer’s software gives users complete flexibility and control over email signatures and disclaimers, ensuring regulatory compliance whilst enabling consistent brand promotion and innovative marketing campaigns.

There are currently over one billion active business email mailboxes worldwide. Cloud mailboxes currently make up 40% of the total but this is forecast to rise to 70% by 2020. This transition, combined with the increasing necessity for Compliance and Marketing teams to own the email signature, represents an immediate opportunity for Exclaimer.

The investment is the 13th and final investment from the Livingbridge 5 fund which has included investments in Direct Ferries, Frank Recruitment and Metronet, although additional funds remain to finance growth strategies and M&A opportunities for existing investments.

The investment from Livingbridge in Exclaimer will see the business invest in expanding relationships with partners, add scale by broadening its suite of products and invest further in infrastructure and customer services to ensure Exclaimer capitalises on its market leading position.

The deal was led by Matthew Caffrey, Xavier Woodward and Mo Aneese. Exclaimer was advised by Jamie Hope, Emmet Keating and Mike Falzon from Catalyst Corporate Finance.

Commenting on the investment, Andrew Millington, Chief Executive Officer of Exclaimer said:
“In the last 16 years we have taken a very simple concept and turned it into a global success. The investment from Livingbridge will enable us to push on even further, adding scale and firepower to our business while still maintaining our entrepreneurial culture of innovation to ensure our customers continue to receive excellent product and services. We are delighted to be working with the Livingbridge team and I know I speak on behalf of the whole team when I say that we are incredibly excited about our future.”

Matthew Caffrey, Partner at Livingbridge said:
“Exclaimer is an impressive company with great technological focus which has demonstrated an ability to iterate their software to lead their market. Our experience of working with high growth tech businesses, combined with Exclaimer’s strong management team and award winning reputation, means that the business is extremely well placed to capture the opportunity that the rapid expansion of MS Office 365 brings.”

 

Metronet (UK), the UK’s fastest growing network services provider, backed by mid-market private equity firm Livingbridge, today announces its acquisition of M247, a leading internet infrastructure and hosting company, for £47.5m.

Following the acquisition of M247, Metronet (UK) will be able to offer a combined portfolio of connectivity and content services including wireless network services, datacentres and managed hosting solutions across the UK and Europe.

Livingbridge invested in Metronet (UK) in June 2014 as part of a £45m secondary buyout of the firm and the acquisition of M247 is the first step in a targeted buy and build strategy that aims to build a disruptive platform in the connectivity space with ‘last mile’ control, speeding up communications to end users, and a powerful transit network across Europe. The combined business will have EBITDA in excess of £12m, over 200 staff and three datacentres.

Established in 2003, Metronet (UK) operates the most advanced hybrid ISP network in the UK and, by combining a unique offering of wireless and wired technology, is able to offer connectivity solutions to corporates and SMEs that are typically implemented five times quicker than traditional fibre and copper based services.

Metronet (UK) currently employs 150 people across two sites in Manchester and works with over 2,500 businesses including Intu, Sofology and ao.com, delivering turnover of £21.5m in the financial year to 2016.

M247 was founded in 2000 by school friends Jonathan Buckle and Chris Byrd, initially as a web hosting services business before David Buckle, Jonathan Buckle’s father, decided to co-invest in the business to purchase a web hosting company named Open Hosting. Open Hosting was then incorporated into Jonathan Buckle and Chris Byrd’s existing business before being rebranded as M247 in 2003.

Today the business provides a wide range of solutions including web hosting, network and data security and 24/365 technical support. The firm operates from Manchester, UK and Bucharest, Romania with clients including On the Beach and Warburtons.

Matthew Caffrey, Partner at Livingbridge, said:

“This is a fantastic step forward for Metronet (UK) as it continues to expand its footprint across the UK and eventually into Europe. This acquisition is the start of a journey to build an international, multi-offering internet service provider and hosting business and we are delighted that M247 will be part of that process. Metronet (UK) has an exciting time ahead as it actively looks for similar acquisition opportunities and we look forward to seeing the business build on its success to date.”

Lee Perkins, Chief Executive at Metronet (UK), said:

“M247 is an excellent fit for us as it provides the scale and reach to build upon our existing momentum and the expertise and infrastructure to provide richer solutions to our combined customers.  In addition to further acquisitions of similarly high quality businesses to M247, we are making significant investments in our systems and people to facilitate a smooth integration for our customers and to support further organic growth.”

 David Buckle, Managing Director at M247, said:

“We have known the Metronet (UK) team for some time and feel they are a perfect fit for our business.  They are the ideal home for M247 and we are extremely excited about what the future holds for our combined businesses.”

 

Livingbridge has invested in the clinical consulting business Four Eyes Insight and will work with the founders to accelerate growth over the next few years. The investment was made from the Livingbridge Enterprise 2 fund.

Four Eyes Insight was founded in 2013 by Dr Henry Carleton and Brian Wells. Leveraging the founders’ clinical experience, the business helps acute NHS trusts across the country identify and implement efficiency and performance improvement projects.The business’s services are in high demand due to the significant funding pressure placed on NHS England. A requirement to find £22bn of annualised efficiency savings by 2020/21 is necessary to overcome the impending funding shortfall. Nearly 60% of the NHS’s budget is directed to acute trusts and as a consequence they are experiencing the greatest share of efficiency saving pressures. Four Eyes Insight’s clinical productivity consulting assists trusts in realising savings.

Drawing on the team’s clinical expertise, the business is able to bring to bear market leading modelling and workflow management techniques for trusts such as The Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust, Croydon Health Services Trust and Central Manchester University Hospitals Trust. In each case Four Eyes Insight have helped these trusts and others to achieve tangible improvements in clinical efficiency and reduced patient waiting times.

Four Eyes Insight has worked with more than thirty NHS acute trusts over the last three years and on each occasion has been able to demonstrate lasting productivity improvements which are highly valued by trust management and the regulator, NHSI.

The investment from Livingbridge will see Four Eyes Insight be able to invest further in internal processes and infrastructure and add additional senior talent with a longer term goal to grow the business’s total headcount from approximately thirty to sixty by 2018. There are also plans for further investment in proprietary software and the development of additional services for the NHS.

Following the investment Pete Clarke and Louise Kingston from Livingbridge will join the board.

Dr Henry Carleton, co-founder and CEO at Four Eyes Insight, commented:

“Since our inception just over three years ago, we have worked hard to establish ourselves as a key partner for the Trusts we work with, turning medical productivity plans into an operational reality and helping them to achieve significant efficiency gains and cost savings. Growing our team will now be a primary focus for the business and we are actively recruiting across all areas of the firm as we look to build on the strong momentum we have generated to date.”

Pete Clarke, Partner at Livingbridge said:

“Livingbridge has a track record of working successfully with consultancy businesses and companies working with the NHS so Four Eyes Insight is in our sweetspot. We are very excited about working with such a passionate and well respected management team and see significant growth potential for the business. We will look to invest further in the products, services and software solutions for the NHS, given the constrained funding backdrop and the great work that the team do to help NHS Trusts ‘achieve more with less’”

 

Livingbridge dials up investment in telecoms specialist

Livingbridge has invested in Southern Communications, one of the UK’s oldest telecoms firms which can trace its roots back to 1965.

Today, Southern Communications provides
SME businesses across the UK with a range of services including fixed-line, data, mobile and cloud based services alongside sale, installation and maintenance of telephone systems.

Over the past three years, Southern Communications has completed the acquisition of eight businesses, transforming itself into one of the UK’s largest providers of business-to-business telecoms services in the UK with turnover of over £30 million, over 6,600 business customers and a workforce of over 160 employees operating from four locations in the UK.

Livingbridge have taken a minority stake in the business and, following the investment, will work with the management team to help grow the customer base, introduce new product lines and services and execute strategic acquisitions to augment the firm’s organic growth plans.

As part of the transaction, the business has also secured a new, £36 million loan facility from Santander and HSBC. In addition, David Goldie, former CEO of TalkTalk, will join the business as Chairman and work alongside Paul Bradford, CEO, who originally joined the Group in 1995 and led a management buyout of the firm in 2002.

Livingbridge is an experienced TMT investor and Southern Communications will join a portfolio which includes IT and managed services provider CableCom, internet services provider Metronet and call recording software business Redbox Recorders..

Paul Bradford, CEO, Southern Communications, said:   “I am really excited about working with both Livingbridge and David Goldie to continue the Southern Communications journey.  David brings with him significant experience having acquired over 40 businesses during his time at TalkTalk and, alongside the investment from Livingbridge, I feel like we have secured the perfect team to drive our ongoing development.  This investment will provide us with significant firepower to acquire complimentary businesses as we seek to build on the strong momentum we have generated and move towards our stated aim of doubling in size over the next three to five years.”

Matthew Caffrey at Livingbridge said:  “Southern Communications has a strong and consistent track record of both organic and acquisitive growth and has a fantastically well positioned product portfolio to service SMEs IT service and telecommunications needs. They are a real market leader in their field with recurring revenues of more than 90% and an industry leading customer retention rate.  We’re looking forward to working with Paul and the team and helping them build on the strong progress the business has made to date.”