Capita buys York technology business for £57m
TECHNOLOGY business Trustmarque has been sold for the third time in three years with Capita agreeing to pay £57m for the York company.
In June 2013 Trustmarque completed a £43m MBO, supported by Dunedin, before Liberata, backed by Leeds investor Endless, took control in September 2014.
Liberata paid £120,000 for the parent company of Trustmarque and had previously spent £6m on Trinity Expert Systems in October 2013 before merging the two businesses under the Trustmarque brand at the start of 2015.
Trustmarque’s management team had been exploring their options since late late year.
It has now become part of Capita, which already had Trustmarque as its embedded software fulfilment partner in its Technology Solutions business.
Capita highlighted the relationship with Microsoft as one of the benefits from the deal, with Trustmarque holding more than 370 Microsoft enterprise agreements and is an accredited supplied on all lots of the government’s G-Cloud framework.
Andy Parker, Capita’s chief executive, said: “This acquisition provides Capita with a set of capabilities and expertise that complement our existing businesses – and the mix of core reseller activity and higher value services is a strong proposition that will sit well with our wider technology offering.”
Trustmarque employs 620 employees based in five offices in York, Coventry, Sheffield, Edinburgh and London, and it serves more than 1,450 private and public sector clients.
In 2015 the enlarged Trustmarque company increased turnover by 42% to £191.9m, which generated a pre-tax profit of £13.3m.
Scott Haddow, chief executive of Trustmarque, added: “We are now well positioned for strong organic growth, supported by Capita’s impressive expertise, experience and scale. There are a number of opportunities for integration – including our success selling services through G-Cloud – that will help us to lower costs and cross sell services to customers.”
Liberata has said it will look to expand its public sector services on the back of significant investment.
William Blair International provided financial advice to Trustmarque and the shareholders of Ardbid with legal advice being provided by Pinsent Masons, to the shareholders, Moore Blatch to Ardbid’s management and Squire Patton Boggs to Trustmarque’s management.
Financial and tax vendor due diligence was prepared by EY and commercial vendor due diligence by PwC. Tax advice to the board and management of Ardbid was provided by Forty Two Consulting.
