Livingbridge-backed FluidOne agrees to refinancing package

Investment in cybersecurity

FluidOne, a provider of connected cloud solutions, has agreed a long-term refinancing package with Pemberton Asset Management to realize the company’s ambitious plans to triple its size over the next five years.

This will provide funding for future strategic add-on acquisitions and support FluidOne’s plans to acquire multiple businesses annually.

Since Livingbridge’s investment in 2019, supporting an MBO led by CEO Russell Horton, the company has quadrupled in size and revenues have grown to £109m thanks to eight acquisitions.

FluidOne combines IT and cybersecurity with connectivity and communications to enable its customers’ employees to work securely from anywhere. It currently has a 50% IT and cyber revenue mix, with recurring revenues of over 70%.

“I am delighted to announce our new partnership with Pemberton,” said Horton. “To support our ambitious plans, we conducted a process of searching for a refinancing package that would provide us with flexibility and opportunities for long-term support.

“Throughout this competitive process, Pemberton stood out as the ideal partner, given their team of experts’ commitment to developing a package tailored to our requirements and their experience in supporting rapidly growing businesses.

“We have another acquisition in the works, which will be the first deployment of our new facility, and a number of follow-on targets that align with our Connected Cloud solutions strategy.”

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Simon Hollingsworth, partner at Livingbridge, said: “The new debt facility provides the scale and flexibility we were looking for to support FluidOne’s next phase of growth in an exciting growth market.

“The strategy since investing with Russell and the team has been to build core capabilities in the highest value next-generation product suites, positioning FluidOne as the UK’s leading IT and cyber managed services provider.

“We now believe we have the right value-add capabilities to deliver this to both customer segments and market verticals, making FluidOne a high quality and differentiated company.”

Richard Meehan, managing director of inception at Pemberton, said: “We are delighted to be working with the FluidOne and Livingbridge team on this transaction.

“Russell and his team have built an exceptional platform in both product capabilities and customer service levels, resulting in market-leading customer satisfaction and retention rates.

“Pemmberton has extensive experience in the IT services market and believes his company is ideally positioned to benefit from continued strong demand for cloud and cybersecurity services.

“We also look forward to helping the company execute on its ambitious acquisition strategy, with many near-term objectives already well advanced.”

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