Palatine has successfully exited its investment in CTS Group, a provider of testing, inspection and geo-engineering consulting services to the construction and infrastructure sectors, through a sale to pan-European private equity investorOakley Capital.
Palatine made a partial exit from the business in 2021, with the sale of its insurance claims management division to HomeServe plc for £53 million. Together the transactions represent a return of 5.8x for Palatine’s investors.
Since its initial investment in 2018, Palatine has grown CTS into a leading business in the UK. Revenues have more than doubled over the last three years, through Palatine’s investment in digital transformation, talent acquisition and a highly successful buy and build strategy. With Palatine’s backing, CTS has made nine acquisitions adding complementary services and geographic scale to its offering.
CTS has also benefited from Palatine’s industry-leading approach to ESG strategy, which has seen the business create an in-house ESG coordinator position and realise significant reductions in its carbon footprint through fleet electrification and digitisation initiatives.
In parallel with the acquisition of CTS, Oakley Capital has invested in Phenna Group, a global Testing, Inspection, Certification, and Compliance (TICC) sector business. CTS will become part of Phenna Group upon completion of both deals. The existing CTS management team will continue to lead the business within the wider group.
