Oak Hill Capital Partners to acquire Pulsant

Pulsant 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 (as the business was re-branded) made three further acquisitions: Blue Square Data, a colocation provider, acquired in February 2011; Dedipower, a managed hosting and cloud services provider, acquired in September 2011; and Scolocate, a provider of colocation, managed hosting and cloud services in Scotland, acquired in December 2012. Pulsant 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. As we considered our strategic options for the business, there was a lot of interest, but Oak Hill emerged as the preferred partner, having a strong understanding of the market and of businesses like Pulsant. Oak Hill will be an active partner and we are very much looking forward to working with them. I would also like to thank BDC, which has been an excellent investment partner. The business has made significant progress under its ownership, increasing profitability and cash flow, and broadening and strengthening the services and facilities that Pulsant offers. Having now used most of the funds that BDC had available for us to invest, we are delighted to have identified a new investor that can support our development in the next phase of our long-term growth.”

David Scott, Principal at Oak Hill, said “We are pleased to be investing in Pulsant and to be supporting Mark Howling and the rest of the Pulsant management team as the company continues its strong growth trajectory. With this transaction, Oak Hill builds upon a decade of significant data centre expertise, where Oak Hill has a demonstrated track record. We believe Pulsant is well positioned to grow in the data centre services market with clear and sustained demand for its services. We look forward to further building the Pulsant franchise.”

Alan Payne, Partner of BDC, commented: “With Mark Howling and the team, we achieved what we set out to do: for Pulsant to become the trusted partner to medium-sized businesses looking for a provider to meet all of their IT and networking needs.”

Advisers involved in this transaction included: Jefferies (Corporate Finance), Travers Smith (Legal), Deloitte (Financial and Tax), Boston Consulting Group (Commercial), ERM (Environment), Marsh (Insurance), MEIT (Technical) for BDC, and Torch Partners (Corporate Finance), Macfarlanes and Paul Weiss (Legal) and EY (Financial and Tax) for Oak Hill.