Clydesdale Bank funds MBO of Investis Limited

5th October 2012

Management completes purchase of technology company in £25m deal

Clydesdale Bank has provided funding worth £9m to support the management buyout of Investis Limited in a deal totalling £25m.

The purchase of the London-based digital corporate communications company by its management, supported by Gresham Private Equity, was funded through Clydesdale Bank’s Acquisition Finance team.

Investis is Europe’s leading specialist in digital corporate communications for public companies. Its products and services include corporate websites, social media solutions, apps and mobile sites, video and webcasting, and website tools.

Founded in 2000, Investis has grown to have more than 260 staff in the UK, Germany, Italy, Finland and India, and services more than 1,000 clients including more than half of the companies in the FTSE 100.

Alison Taylor, director for Acquisition Finance at Clydesdale Bank, said: “We are always proud to support successful and ambitious companies which are looking to realise growth opportunities through organic expansion or acquisition.

“The team at Investis and Gresham Private Equity certainly fit that bill and we are sure that they will realise their vision of delivering Investis’ renowned services to an increasingly global client base.”

Helen James, chief executive of Investis, and her management team, aim to use the investment from the Bank to continue to grow the business through expansion into new foreign markets and an increased service offering.

Helen James said: “Investis is a great company and we have always been innovators in our market. The backing from Gresham will allow us to expand faster than ever and the funding support from Clydesdale Bank has been instrumental in allowing this deal to complete.”

As part of the Gresham Private Equity deal, Investis has also completed the acquisition of the investor relations business of Hemscott, part of Morningstar Inc, bringing a further 600 clients to Investis.

Paul Franks, partner at Gresham Private Equity, said: “Working with the team at Clydesdale Bank throughout this transaction was a really positive experience. They quickly demonstrated a good understanding of the business and an appetite to fund.

“The team reacted quickly to diligence information which was incredibly useful to us as we could move at speed to complete the deal.”