Synova invests in NorthEdge-backed Orbis Protect

Harriet Matthews
16 June 2021

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Synova has announced an investment in Orbis Protect, a UK-based property security service in which NorthEdge Capital has held a majority stake since 2018.

NorthEdge will remain as a significant minority shareholder as part of the deal, while Synova will hold a majority position.

Synova's Alex Bowden and Ben Snow have joined Orbis's board as part of the deal. Stuart Owens will also join Orbis as CFO from July 2021.

The deal values Orbis in the £75-100m region.

Orbis's revenues have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 17% since NorthEdge's investment in 2018, according to a statment. The company acquired security systems business Optosafe in August 2020.

Following Synova's investment, Orbis will continue to focus on organic growth, as well as acquisitions to consolidate the fragmented UK and European market in which it operates.

Ardian has provided unitranche debt to back the deal.

Synova is deploying equity via Synova Fund IV, which held a final close in 2019 on £365m. Synova targets companies based in Ireland and the UK, generally investing in businesses with enterprise values of £30-150m and deploying equity tickets of £10-60m. The fund has now made five platform investments and intends to make 8-12 platform investments in total.

The fund announced an investment in asset management accountancy service Doran + Minehane earlier this week, as reported.

Previous funding
Sullivan Street Partners acquired Orbis (then known as SitexOrbis) in March 2013.

NorthEdge acquired a majority stake in Orbis in August 2018. Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank provided financing for the deal. At the time of NorthEdge's investment, Orbis posted revenues of £28.4m and EBITDA of £2.7m in the year to March 2017. The firm employed 400 staff at the time.

The GP invested in Orbis via NorthEdge Capital Fund II, which held a final close on its £300m hard-cap in March 2019. The fund was 90% deployed as of March 2021, according to Unquote Data.

Company
Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Uxbridge, Orbis provides security services for vacant properties. Its main service areas are site security, as well as property service (which includes reactive clearance and cleaning) and monitoring services (which includes lone-worker solutions).

According to its latest publicly available accounts, the company posted revenues of £38.2m in 2020, compared with £33.6m in 2019 and £30.3m in 2018. The company's EBITDA for 2020 stood at £5m, versus £4.2m in 2019 and £3.3m in 2018.

People
Orbis Protect – Ben Howard (CEO).
Synova – Alex Bowden (partner); Ben Snow (director); Matthew Charman (investment director).
NorthEdge Capital – Kevin O'Loughlin (investment director).

Advisers
Equity (Synova) – KPMG (corporate finance, financial due diligence, tax); Proskauer Rose (legal); Intuitus (IT due diligence).
Vendor (NorthEdge) – Deloitte, Darren Boocock (corporate finance); Anil Gupta (debt advisory); Browne Jacobson, Michael Stace (legal); LEK Consulting, Dominic Miles (commercial due diligence); PwC, Simon White (financial due diligence).
Management – Eversheds Sutherland, James Trevis (legal).