Node4 has secured a new principle investor, leading private equity firm Bowmark Capital. As part of this transaction Bowmark has acquired a majority shareholding alongside Node4’s existing management team, and has committed a further ?40m of follow on funding for Node4’s ambitious growth and acquisition plans over the next three years. This transaction follows a period of rapid growth and service development at Node4. Within the last three years Node4 has tripled its staff numbers, grown its customer base to 900 and expanded both its geographical presence and cloud services portfolio. As well as considerable expansion of its Northampton and Leeds data centres, Node4 has also upgraded its DWDM network, launched a major new managed security offering, and is poised to roll-out further cloud-based services aimed at the UK mid-market.
“Anyone that has seen Node4’s progress within the last three years will know we’re an ambitious and rapidly-growing company,” commented Andrew Gilbert, Managing Director, Node4. “Customers have strongly favoured Node4’s integrated approach, offering a broad range of ICT services and solutions alongside an industry-leading infrastructure. As a result, Node4 has achieved every strategic objective it set itself three years ago. Now it’s time for the next exciting phase in our growth and development.
“While we continue to offer excellent service to existing customers, with business-as-usual, we will also be undertaking several exciting new initiatives in the background to ensure we have the right technology available to best serve our customers and grow our business further. With its focus on supporting management teams in UK growth businesses we have no doubt that Bowmark Capital will be the perfect partner to now help Node4 accomplish its ambitious growth targets.”
Bowmark Capital has bought-out Node4 holdings from its previous institutional investor, LDC. In undertaking this deal Node4 received advice and oversight from professional services firm PwC and legal firm Pinsent Masons.
“We have been tracking the ICT managed services sector for a number of years,” added Bowmark Investment Director Stephen Delaney, “and are delighted to have the opportunity to invest in the standout company in the sector. We have been hugely impressed with Andrew Gilbert and his team and what they have achieved to date.”
Martin Draper, Chief Executive of LDC, said: “The company’s success demonstrates the impact private equity investment can have as a catalyst to build scale and value, and to support the vision of ambitious management teams. Our close partnership with Andrew and the team has helped the business to more than double its revenues and triple its employee numbers.”
With full ownership of its own infrastructure, including three state-of-the-art data centres in Derby, Leeds and Northampton and its Cisco CMSP accredited Cloud infrastructure, Node4 retains full control over service delivery.
