Investment follows one week after the announcement of Aliter’s fund close and completion of first investment
Aliter Capital LLP (“Aliter”), the specialist investor focused on small to mid-size UK support services businesses, has announced the completion of its second investment since launching its fund last week. This latest investment sees Aliter back Complete Asset Life Management Group Ltd (“CALM”) http://www.calm- solutions.com, a specialist asset management company providing services to the utilities market. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
The news comes one week after Aliter announced the launch of its new £92 million fund, one of the first funds of its kind focussed on small and mid-sized businesses in the UK support services sector; and its first investment in Scottish engineering group Edwin James Holdings.
Aliter has taken a majority stake in CALM with management also retaining a significant investment. CALM was established in 2012 in Preston, and employs around 85 staff. CALM has grown significantly since 2012, seeing a threefold increase in revenues over the past 2 years.
Aliter was attracted to CALM’s technological capabilities as well as the strength of its management team and its established presence in the North West and Midlands. Aliter plans to use its deep industrial experience and established network to help drive organic and acquisitive growth for the business throughout the rest of the UK within the utilities services space.
CALM combines the operational aspects of managing and maintaining infrastructure networks for clients, with cutting edge IT applications that can be developed to provide real time information on asset performance with greater access to information for data analytics. CALM’s core blue chip customer base is primarily within the water sector but both its software and operational asset management services are equally applied in to electricity and gas distribution and transmission.
The investment by Aliter is made through a holding company, Ipsum Group, which was created in January 2017. Aliter has recruited Greg Fernie, a seasoned utilities industry executive with experience in senior commercial and operations roles, as CEO of the new Group, working alongside CALM founders and shareholders Stephen Bruce and Mark Popham. Aliter partner Greig Brown has been appointed Chairman of the group and will be joined on the group board by Aliter managing partner Billy Allan.
Greig Brown, partner of Aliter commented; “We are delighted to have made a second investment since launching our fund last week, in this leading technology and services business in the utilities sector. The fund is already generating significant momentum and we have a very positive pipeline of investment opportunities within the support services sector.
“In CALM, we are backing a first-class management team and we are delighted to have introduced Greg Fernie as CEO of Ipsum Group, whom we have known and worked with for some time. We will use our network to identify off-market acquisition opportunities in order to grow this regional business into a national operator.“
Mark Popham from CALM commented: “Choosing Aliter as our investment partner was the obvious decision. We were very impressed with how quickly they understood our business and their contacts within the support services space are second to none. Aliter gives us the additional capital that we need to invest in our business in order to advance through innovation and new technologies to help reduce costs for our customers and enhance our offering. Aliter gives us the funding, contacts and expertise to help us to drive the transformational growth of our business across the UK.”