Palatine Private Equity has sold IT services business Selection for GBP34.8 million to AIM listed Castle Street Investment (CSI).
Selection provides fully outsourced IT solutions to over 500 organisations across the public and private sector. Clients include David Lloyd Leisure, Day Lewis Pharmacy, KPMG, Nuffield Health and Bibby Financial Services.
Palatine backed a GBP15m management buyout of the business in December 2011.
The management team, led by Managing Director Grahame Harrington, Chairman Alan Howarth and Finance Director Mark Woodall, have transformed Selection from a traditional break/fix maintenance IT support business to a fully outsourced IT managed service provider with revenues of GBP40m.
They also made two strategic acquisitions during the four-year investment period with the purchase of hosting and disaster recovery services business Cloud Data in 2011, before acquiring Aggregated Telecom (8tel) in 2013. This added networking, connectivity, voice and hosted telephony to the portfolio of services. Most recently Selection achieved G-Cloud 7 supplier status which is set to increase business opportunities in the public sector.
Castle Street Investments plc (CSI) is an AIM listed cash shell and is planning to use Selection Services as a platform for further acquisitions.
Tony Dickin, Partner at Palatine Private Equity, says: “Having delivered a successful buy and build strategy as well as achieving organic growth, I believe Selection is now in a strong position to capitalise further on the favourable market conditions within the SME market and continue the next phase of its development under Castle Street’s ownership.”
A team at BDO comprising Paul Russell, Gareth Davies and Alex McDonnell provided corporate finance advice on the transaction. Rebecca Grisewood at Gateleys provided legal advice to the Company.
