Octopus sells Box-it Data to Montagu's Oasis

The transaction brings to an end an eight-year holding period for Octopus, during which time the company opened new sites in the south-east and north of England, in addition to acquiring Ireland-based Mid Ulster Storage Solutions.

The deal comes eight months after Montagu acquired Oasis from Housatonic Partners and Sverica Capital Management in a secondary buyout.

Financial details of the transaction remain undisclosed, though Oasis said in a statement that the acquisition represented its "most substantial acquisition to date".

Oasis has made 29 bolt-on acquisitions since it was founded 18 years ago, and has expanded into the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium under Housatonic's and Sverica's tenure. It acquired the RIM division of Dutch parent Hulshoff Opslag in July 2017.

According to recent reports by Unquote sister publication Debtwire, the group generated EBITDA of €16m in its most recent financial results and is anticipating EBITDA of more than €20m in FY17.

Montagu is invested in Oasis via its Montagu V vehicle, which closed on its €2.75bn hard-cap in August 2015.

Previous funding
Octopus invested £2m in Box-It in March 2010 with capital drawn from Octopus Capital for Enterprise Fund.

Company
Founded in 1986 in Winchester, Hampshire, Box-it is a document management company that trades under the Box-it UK and Box-it Document Solutions brands. It operates from 16 data centres across the UK, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

According to publicly available documents, the business generated a turnover of £9.3m in 2016, with an operating loss of £36,000.

People
Montagu Private Equity – Michal Chalaczkiewicz (director).
Offsite Archive Storage and Integrated Services – Brian Connolly (CEO); Dennis Barnedt (founder, vice-chairperson).
Box-it Data Management – Simon McCowen (chairperson).

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• Topics
• Exits
• Portfolio management
• UK / Ireland
• Support services
• United Kingdom
• Montagu Private Equity
• Build-up
• Octopus Ventures
• Trade sale