Private equity firm has its head in the cloud after technology investment

Beech Tree Private Equity has made a “significant investment” in a fast-growing cloud computing business.

The deal with Transparity Solutions, a pureplay Microsoft Public Cloud Partner, creates an opportunity to grow a business in a highly-fragmented market.

Manchester-based Beech Tree has previously enjoyed success with its investments and acquisitive strategies for cloud managed services provider BCN Group and communications technology business Wavenet.

It had been looking for a suitable investment in a Microsoft specialist cloud service provider targeting the large corporate and enterprise market.

Beech Tree plans to work with Bournemouth-based Transparity on a buy-and-build strategy that will boost its existing growth. The business delivered £7.9m revenue last year and expects to achieve £13m this year and is forecasting £21m next year.

Adam Rudd

Adam Rudd, director at Beech Tree Private Equity, who will join the Transparity board alongside his colleague Simon Hemley, said: “The market is growing extremely quickly, and the business has referenced very strongly with a happy customer base and a strong relationship with Microsoft.

“We are excited to support the management team in pursuing a buy and build strategy – this is an area in which we have a lot of experience, having helped many of our other invested businesses to pursue similar strategies.”

Transparity employs 60 people working on digital transformation projects and migration to Microsoft 365 and Azure services, and support and maintenance on Microsoft platforms. It plans to grow its team to 200 people in the next three years.

David Jobbins, chief executive of Transparity, said: “Importantly, this investment will enable us to continue to improve and expand our high-quality offering to our customer base.

“With Beech Tree’s assistance we will now accelerate our organic growth through further expansion of our cloud services proposition and we are now looking forward to embarking on our acquisition strategy in order to accelerate our growth even further.”

The North West was well-represented in the advisors who supported the deal: Dow Schofield Watts, DLA Piper, PwC, The Customer Consultancy, i2i HQ, Bollington Insurance and Moore Barlow.

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