Midland equity investor Catapult Venture Managers has given financial support to a management buyout at a specialist technology outsourcing and logistics company.
Milton Keynes-based Echo, which works with some of the largest IT services companies, has been taken over by directors after undisclosed funding was supplied by Catapult and specialist asset-based lender Centric Commercial Finance.
Fujitsu, Getronics, Phoenix IT and Unisys are among Echo’s long-standing customers, as well as others in the retail, leisure, financial services, and the public sector.
Richard Bucknell, fund principal at Catapult, said: “Echo is firmly established as the ‘best of breed’ operator in a market space which we expect to become increasingly interesting, as the rapid advance of cloud computing and other technological developments sees field-based distributed IT hardware become increasingly unsophisticated, and the servicing needs becoming more suitable for skilled mobile technicians rather than the more expensive less productive traditional IT engineers.
“The large IT services companies are not suited to providing this high volume, low value work economically for their customers, so the rationale to outsource to a specialist, such as Echo, is compelling. “Echo’s management team is highly experienced in this market and has strong ambitions to continue to grow and develop the business. We’re delighted to have helped enable them to acquire the business, and look forward to working with them to realise their goals over the coming years.”
