Bridgepoint exits Pulsant to Oak Hill

Bridgepoint first invested in Pulsant when it acquired Edinburgh-based Lumison in October 2010 in a transaction thought to be worth less than £25m. Capital for the acquisition was drawn from the BDC I fund, a mid-market vehicle launched in 2009 with a £300m target.

After rebranding as Pulsant, the company undertook a buy-and-build strategy. In February 2011 it bought Blue Square Data, a UK data centre operator with offices in Maidenhead and Milton Keynes, for £22m. It added computing services business DediPower Managed Hosting in October that year, in a deal believed to be worth £20m, and Scottish data centre business ScoLocate the following year.

The exit comes after Bridgepoint-backed UK clothing retailer Fat Face scrapped plans to raise £110m in an IPO on the London Stock Exchange last month.

Company
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Reading, Pulsant is a provider of cloud and IT services to medium-sized businesses. The company operates from 10 data centres in the UK with operations in Edinburgh, Maidenhead, Milton Keynes and London, as well as New York, Amsterdam and Hong Kong.

In 2013 Pulsant generated a turnover of £43.7m with EBITDA of £16m.

People
Mark Howling is CEO of Pulsant. Alan Payne is a partner at Brigepoint. J Taylor Crandall, Steven Gruber, Denis Nayden and Tyler Wolfram are managing partners at Oak Hill.

Advisers
Vendor – Jefferies (Corporate finance); Travers (Legal); Deloitte (Financial due diligence); BCG (Corporate due diligence); Marsh (Insurance due diligence); ERM (Environmental due diligence).
Company – Travers (Legal, tax); Liberty Corporate Finance (Corporate finance).

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• Topics
• UK / Ireland
• Technology
• Exits
• Oak Hill Capital Partners
• Bridgepoint
• United Kingdom