Cleaning group backed in £12m security deal

A SECURITY company which has a Yorkshire base has been bought in a £12m deal.

Temple Security, a national provider of security professionals, remote monitoring, key holding and electronic security services, has one of its two regional control centres on Fairfield Park, at Manvers, Wath upon Dearne in Rotherham.

LPM Group, the contract cleaning and maintenance services specialist, has continued its expansion with the acquisition.

Clydesdale Bank, sister bank to Yorkshire Bank, provided a £7m funding package to support the acquisition which, when combined with LPM’s existing Axis Security business, makes the group a top 20 national security provider.

Temple is the third acquisition in three years by LPM, which is backed by the private equity buy and build specialist Sovereign Capital.

Temple has another control centre in Hounslow and offices in Manchester, Birmingham, Dundee, Belfast, Sunderland and Dublin. 

Temple has a turnover of £20m and employs more than 800 guards.

LPM, which is based in Sidcup, Kent, started in 1985 as London Property Maintenance, an office cleaning business and expanded into other services and regions.

Sovereign backed the buy-in management buyout of the business in 2006 and since then has supported two further acquisitions – that of Leeds-based Dependable Services in 2007 and Manchester-based InterCity Group last April.

In October last year, Clydesdale Bank provided a £12m package for LPM as part of a refinancing deal to replace the previous funding by Icelandic bank Kaupthing.

Alison Taylor, director with Clydesdale Bank corporate and structured finance, said: “The acquisition of Temple represents an excellent opportunity for LPM to augment its existing security arm and provides a platform for it to sell add-on services such as electronic security.

“It is also a further step towards LPM’s target of becoming a £100m revenue group with a broad service offering.”