Lyceum sells Adapt to Datapipe

Kenny Wastell
18 August 2016

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Lyceum Capital has sold UK-based IT company Adapt to US trade buyer Datapipe.

The acquisition is intended to expand Datapipe's footprint in the European market. The buyer has existing offices in London, alongside data centres in London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

Lyceum implemented a buy-and-build growth strategy for Adapt, in addition to appointing former Cable and Wireless managing director Stewart Smythe as chief executive.

The company also entered into a partnership with Amazon Web Services that saw it expand into the hyperscale market – a process that uses cloud-based storage and processing to reduce the demands on physical servers.

Smythe will remain with the company following the deal and will oversee Datapipe's European activity.

The sale marks the first exit for Lyceum in 2016. Most recently it sold clinical trial research business Synexus to LDC in an £83m transaction in February 2015.

Previous funding
Lyceum acquired Adapt for £30m in October 2011, with HSBC providing a debt package to support the deal.

The following year it invested an undisclosed sum to support the £13m add-on acquisition of Cardiff-based eLinia in a deal that included an additional debt arrangement. The merger of the two companies created a consolidated group with a turnover of £50m and 165 members of staff.

Adapt then made a further acquisition in June 2013, bolting on cloud hosting provider Sleek.

Company
Founded in 2001, London-headquartered Adapt is an IT infrastructure and cloud hosting company. Its customers include MoneyCorp, Made.com, 1st Credit, Greencore and Gondola Group.

The business has additional offices in Cardiff, Ipswich and Leeds. It has a 25% EBITDA margin.

People
Lyceum – Simon Hitchcock (partner).
Adapt – Stewart Smythe (chief executive).
Datapipe – Robb Allen (CEO).

Advisers
Vendor – Macfarlanes, Ian Martin (legal); Catalyst Corporate Finance, Andy Currie, Jamie Hope, Emmet Keating (corporate finance).
Management – Moore Blatch, Peter Jeffery (legal); Jamieson Advisory, Stuart Coventry (corporate finance).