Norvestor's Cegal and Blueback in merger

The combined company will be majority owned by Novestor V, which closed on €236m in 2008 and already holds Cegal in its portfolio. Employees and board members will retain a 48% stake in the merged company.

In June this year, Cegal issued a NOK 225m senior secured bond with maturity in May 2017. The bond issue was priced at three months Nibor plus 5.5%. Proceeds were earmarked to refinance existing debt, fund an initial payout to shareholders and support organic and acquisitive expansion.

Previous funding
In 2010, Norvestor took a 75% stake in Cegal via its fifth fund via an all-equity deal. The company's CEO and management team held 25% of the shares. Norvestor acquired the stake through an auction process led by First Securities.

Company
Following the merger, the business will focus on the oil and gas industry, providing software development, deployment and cloud infrastructure. The combined company is forecast to report revenues of NOK 550m in 2014. Following the merger, the company will have a headcount of 300, with offices in Stavanger, Bergen, Oslo, London, Houston, Calgary and Dubai.

Cegal provides centralised IT operations with a focus on Application Service Provider (ASP), consulting services, and sales of hardware and software as part of projects and customer relationship. The company has a particularly strong position in the oil exploration sector. The business is headquartered in Stavanger, Norway.

Blueback specialises in the provision of geoscience consulting services and software solutions for the oil and gas industry. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Stavanger, with subsidiaries in Oslo, London, Houston, Calgary and Dubai.

People
Svein Torgersen, former CEO of Cegal, becomes CEO of the combined company. Norvestor Equity partner Henning Vold is chairman of the merged business.

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• Topics
• Nordics
• Technology
• Buyouts
• Norway
• Norvestor