International private equity firm Cinven announces that it has agreed to sell Northgate Public Services Limited (‘NPS’ or ‘the Group’) to Tokyo Stock Exchange listed NEC Corporation (‘NEC’, TSE: 6701) for a total consideration of £475 million.
Acquired by Cinven in December 2014, NPS is a leading provider of mission-critical software and Intellectual Property-led services to the public sector in the UK, Australia and Canada. The Group is headquartered in the UK and has more than 2,000 staff worldwide.
NEC is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people worldwide. The acquisition by NEC is set to deliver significant growth opportunities to NPS capitalising on NEC’s biometric and artificial intelligence technology as well as its global network across North America, Asia Pacific (‘APAC’) and other regions.
David Barker, Partner at Cinven, said:
“The sale of NPS has been achieved despite a challenging UK public spending environment; NPS has been able to deliver cost-effective services that greatly improve the collaboration and efficiencies of public sector organisations.
“This transaction will enable the enlarged Group to offer a wider set of software and services to its existing clients and to expand both geographically and by sector. I look forward to working with the NPS and NEC teams to make a success of the combination.”
Steve Callaghan, Chief Executive of NPS, commented:
“Our team has worked incredibly hard over the past two years to transform the Group operationally and financially, ultimately making NPS a highly attractive asset to NEC. We see this as the beginning of our next phase of development as we capitalise on the technical capabilities and market access provided by NEC. It’s an exciting time to be part of NPS.”
Completion of the transaction is expected by the end of January 2018. The transaction follows Cinven’s other recent realisations, including CeramTec, a leading global manufacturer of high performance ceramics (October 2017), and CPA Global, a leading Intellectual Property management and technology company (August 2017).
Cinven was advised on this transaction by DC Advisory (M&A), KPMG (financial), Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (legal), Deloitte (tax) and OC&C (commercial).
