Trustmarque in £43 mill management buyout

TrustmarqueYork-based Trustmarque has been bought out by its management to the tune of £43 million.

The deal was underwritten by Dunedin which is a UK mid-market buyout house.

Trustmarque has been in operation for over 25 years and it helps organisations license, deploy and manage Microsoft, VMware, and McAfee software.
It made £130 million for the year ended 31 August 2012 and it is hoped that Dunedin’s investment will enable Trustmarque to expand.

The company hires 180 people at three sites in York, Bracknell and Edinburgh and currently serves over 1,200 clients including RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, Sainsbury’s and Capita. Public sector clients include the NHS, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice, HMRC, local authorities and NHS trusts throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

Trustmarque was the first Microsoft partner to achieve Gold licensing status and remains a top software and consulting services supplier to the UK Government.

The Sunday Times ranked it as number 54 in their 2013 league of the best small companies to work for in the UK and the company has also been shortlisted by the National Business Awards scheme.

Mark Ligertwood, partner at Dunedin said that Trustmarque esd s market-leader with a clearly positioned brand and an exceptional reputation within both the commercial and public sectors.

“The UK market for software and IT services is currently worth an estimated £40bn and is expected to grow at two percent to five percent to 2016,” Ligertwood said.

It appears the company’s management has a cunning plan to expand and it is a business plan that Dunedin thinks has legs.

Scott Haddow, CEO of Trustmarque said that Trustmarque has developed significantly over the last four years. His ambition is to cement our position as an independent end-to-end technology services provider and the trusted adviser of choice for blue chip and large government enterprises.

Trustmarque was previously owned by LDC which grew it from an IT reseller into a value-added provider of IT services, growing services-driven revenues to 33 per cent of turnover.

In 2011, Trustmarque bought Nimbus Technology Systems as part of a move to provide cloud-based services.