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Pulsant

June 2014
UK, £100m - £500m

Liberty Corporate Finance is pleased to announce the management buy out of Pulsant.

Oak Hill Capital Partners has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Pulsant from Bridgepoint Development Capital.  Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is unconditional and is expected to complete in the coming weeks.

Pulsant, a leading provider of managed, hosted data centre and IT infrastructure services to the mid-market, was formed in October 2010 when BDC acquired Lumison, a provider of connectivity, hosting and managed IT services. This was the first step in a strategy to create a ‘one stop shop’ managed and hosted IT services supplier in the underserved UK mid-market.

Subsequently, Pulsant made three further acquisitions and currently provides its services from a network of 10 company operated datacentres across the UK, connected via the company’s own fibre network.

Oak Hill is an experienced investor in the data centre services market. Its current IT services investments include ViaWest, Inc., a leading provider of colocation and hybrid cloud services to medium-sized enterprises in regional US markets, and Intermedia.net, Inc., a global provider of cloud-based, hosted services to small- and medium-sized businesses. 

In 2005, Oak Hill co-led the consolidation of the European colocation industry by acquiring Telecity Group plc and executing on a number of subsequent strategic acquisitions.

Mark Howling, CEO of Pulsant, commented:

“We expect continued significant consolidation amongst suppliers in this dynamic market, and we believe Pulsant is well-positioned to expand its leadership position by executing on targeted acquisitions, bringing additional capabilities to benefit Pulsant and its customers.We are delighted to have identified a new investor that can support our development in the next phase of our long-term growth.” 

He added:

“Both the management of Pulsant and Oak Hill were keen for management to roll over a significant proportion of their shareholding. Liberty provided invaluable insight and advice to enable us to do that in an informed manner, and in a way that was fair and acceptable for all parties. I would definitely use Liberty again.”

Michael McDonagh added:

"With BDC’s support, Mark Howling and his team have done a great job to develop and grow Pulsant into the trusted partner to medium-sized businesses looking for a provider to meet all of their IT and networking needs.  We thoroughly enjoyed working with Mark and his team and wish them continued success with the support of Oak Hill."