Equistone buys a slice of print services outfit Apogee

history-of-print-16th-century-printing-companyManaged print and document services outfit Apogee has woken up and found a big chunk of itself has been bought by private equity investor Equistone Partners Europe.

Maidstone-headquartered Apogee employs around 450 staff across 14 offices in the UK and mainland Europe selling hardware and managed services on kit from Canon, Xerox, Konica Minolta and Kyocera.

The Apogee founders Jason Collins and Robin Stanton-Gleaves will stay in charge but Equistone’s minions Steve O’Hare and Andrew Backen will join the board. Equistone’s cash means that the company is valued at £185m, the parties said.

Money raised from sale will be used to fund an expansion programme.

Apogee sells its services to the likes of McDonalds, which bought a print infrastructure and managed service, as well as fashion label Ted Baker, PC maker Dell and BDO.

It is doing quite well. In 2014, Apogee turned over £66.1 million and reported operating profit of £7.47 million. In 2015 the firm bought fellow print managed print services business Balreed Group.