Inflexion buys ANS

Inflexion said in a statement that the tie-up is intended to address the opportunity presented by the rapid growth of the market for digital and cloud services. Each business will continue to operate under its existing brand.

The GP is deploying equity via Inflexion Partnership Capital Fund I and Fund II, as well as its Supplemental Fund IV vehicle. Partnership Capital I held a final close in October 2014 on £400m, while the second vehicle closed in may 2018 on £1bn. Inflexion's Partnership Capital strategy takes minority stakes in UK-based companies, deploying equity tickets of £10-300m and targeting businesses looking to implement digital enhancement, international expansion and acquisitive strategies.

Paul Nannetti has been appointed as chair of the combined group. Ian Brown of UKFast and Paul Shannon and Chris Hodgson of ANS will join the group's board.

Scott Fletcher, who previously owned a majority stake in ANS, has sold his stake as part of the transaction.

The group intends to hire more than 100 additional staff before the end of 2021, according to a statement.

Inflexion acquired a minority stake in UKFast in December 2018, investing via Inflexion Partnership Capital Fund II for a 30% stake. At the time, Unquote reported that UKFast posted EBITDA of £21m and revenues of £47m in 2017, with the expectation of reaching EBITDA of £25m alongside revenues of £54m in 2018.

In May 2020, the GP increased its stake in the business to 75%.

Company
UKFast was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Manchester. The company provides private cloud hosting and security services, as well as public cloud operations. In 2019, the company posted revenues of £62.2m and adjusted EBITDA of £26m, according to its latest publicly available accounts.

ANS was founded in 1996 and is also headquartered in Manchester, with 270 employees. The company specialises in assisting companies with their transition to public cloud systems, partnering with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. According to its latest financial statements, ANS posted revenues of £46.7m in 2020, compared with £50.4m in 2019. It posted adjusted EBITDA of £8.2m in 2020, versus £9.5m in 2019.

People
Inflexion – Irina Hemmers, Carl Wormald (partners); James Wigglesworth (investment director).
UKFast – Ian Brown (CEO).
ANS – Paul Shannon (CEO).

Advisers
Equity – GCA Altium (corporate finance); Travers Smith (legal); Deloitte (financial due diligence); PwC (tax); DR&P (insurance due diligence).

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