Hg, TA invest in Access Group

Katharine Hidalgo
21 October 2020

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Hg and TA Associates have invested in management software company The Access Group.

Together, the investors will make a substantial strategic investment in the company and will both retain joint control of Access Group, alongside the management team.

Hg first invested in the company from its £2.5bn vehicle Hg 8. The fund was 31% deployed as of September 2019. TA is currently investing from TA XIII, which closed on $8.5bn in May 2019.

Access Group will continue to pursue organic and acquisitive growth projects, as well as geographic expansion.

During the financial year ending on 30 June 2021, Access Group completed nine acquisitions, including the acquisitions of Core HR, PeopleHR, Safety Media, The Payroll Service Company, Microlearn and Elfy.

Access Group also recently acquired Attaché, an Australian-based financial management and payroll software supplier. This transaction marked the first wholly overseas software business acquired.

Access Group has also made acquisitions in the 2020/21 financial year with the acquisition of Eclipse, a provider of case and practice management systems; and DPS Software, a UK provider of practice management software for legal practices and in-house legal departments. These two acquisitions resulted in the creation of the company's legal division.

Previous funding
Lyceum acquired Access Group for £50m in March 2011 with capital drawn from Lyceum Capital Partners Fund II.

TA then bought the company (at the time known as Access Technology Group) from Lyceum in January 2015, in a transaction that reportedly valued the business at more than £225m.

In April 2018, Hg invested in Access Group in a deal valuing the business at £1bn. HgCapital Trust co-invested approximately £30.9m in the company along with Hg 8.

Capita agreed to sell 100% of the shares of Eclipse Legal Systems to Access Group for £56.5m in June 2020. The enterprise value represents a multiple of 14.1x Eclipse's adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and capitalised development costs.

Company
Headquartered in London and founded in 1991, Access Group provides business software for finance departments, human resources, warehousing, customer relationship management and supply chain management. The company generated 2020 pro forma revenues of £315m, while pro forma adjusted EBITDA sat at £109m.

People
Hg – Jonathan Boyes (partner).
TA Associates – Morgan Seigler (managing director).