Beech Tree Private Equity has made a significant investment in the Manchester-based IT managed services provider BCN Group. Dow Schofield Watts Transaction Services advised Beech Tree on the deal.
BCN Group provides cloud hosting, voice solutions, data management, maintenance and other services to hundreds of customers across the country. The company has a strong focus on technical knowledge and customer services and a Net Promoter Score of 89. It has also built an end-to-end, scalable management platform and ERP system, which automates tasks and manages customer interactions and workflows.
BCN was formed in Wilmslow in 2009 by Simon Kelf and Matt Smith. As part of the deal the company has appointed a new CFO, Julian Llewellyn. Matt Lovell, the former CTO of Pulsant, and Adam Rudd and Andy Marsh of Beech Tree have also joined the board as Non-Executive Directors.
Adam Rudd said: “After meeting many businesses in the space, we were really impressed with BCN. We believe the ambition held by the management team, the sales and customer centric culture and most importantly, the technical knowledge held within the business sets BCN apart from its competition. 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.”
Ed Brentnall and Nick Bolton of Dow Schofield Watts Transaction Services provided vendor due diligence and top-up financial due diligence for Beech Tree. Ed commented: “BCN is a business we have come to know very well. It operates in a fast-growing market but one which is highly fragmented. This investment will allow management to expand the sales team and its cloud services provision, and pursue a buy and build strategy. We wish Simon and Matt at BCN and Andy and Adam at Beech Tree all the best and look forward to seeing BCN going from strength to strength.”
