Sector-specific
NEWSLETTERS
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Prism provided practical advice and counselling on the sales process and procedures, ensuring we never felt alone or without the necessary experience to step through the sale. Just because I understood how to run a complex company, with a subsidiary in Sri Lanka, in the demanding world of IT, that did not provide the experience of selling a company. Peter and his team brought that very welcome experience.
I believe that adding Prism to our team very early in our decision making to sell the company ultimately produced outstanding value for the shareholders. A job well done.
Nick Clarke – Systems Administrators Limited
The UK is home to Europe’s largest Information and Communication Technologies sector and has in recent years been a major enabler of economic growth. There are around one million people employed in the sector and collectively they generate c.10% of GDP, with over £35 billion of GVA.
Despite all the recent doom and gloom there is still a market out there for M&A in the sector. Whilst we generally only hear about the high profile activity (eg. EMC’s recent acquisition of Data Domain for $2.1bn after a protracted bidding war with NetApp, and eBay’s sale of a 65% stake in Skype to an investor group led by Silver Lake thereby valuing the business at $2.75bn), deals are continuing to be done in the SME space. An example of which would be the sale of RapidHost to Innovise plc (see our News section).
Here at Prism we are specifically focussed on M&A relating to medium sized companies in the sector – typically those with turnovers between £0.5m and £10m. Of the 135,000 UK incorporated (and active) companies, around 93% may be regarded as ‘small’ (net assets below £200k). The remaining c.7% are comprised primarily of ‘medium’ sized businesses (c.85% of which have turnovers under £10m).
We offer a highly personalised service to both buyers and sellers which may commence with exit/acquisition readiness advice, our Options Review or straight into a buy or sell mandate. Whatever the preferred approach, we work extremely closely with the client throughout the whole process – up to and beyond completion.
Prism has recently commissioned a research project into M&A in the ICT sector, specifically concerning medium sized companies (£0.5m to £10m turnover range). The research looked at attitudes towards succession and growth, the basis for valuations and the thinking underlying sales and acquisitions. We have produced a 10 page report which summarises our findings and are making this available to all (free of charge) in both PDF and hard copy versions. We hope you find it interesting reading.
If you would like a free copy, please complete the ICT report request form below.
Request Prism Sector Research Report:
Mergers and Acquisitions in the UK ICT Sector