Ramesys sold 'in good shape'

VAR in positive position with strong contract pipeline, Mark Chambers reveals

Mark Chambers: The decision to leave was the right one for me

Ramesys' outgoing chief executive has left the business “in good shape” for new owner Capita Group after it was acquired last week for £14m.

Mark Chambers, who has now left the company, told CRN the education specialist had sorted out its debt issues and built a strong order pipeline worth upwards of £170m and had been approached by no less than 14 companies in the past year with a view to acquisition.

“We had to look at some of these offers in the first quarter of the year,” he said. “We could only sell the business in that timeframe, otherwise we would have had to concentrate on fulfilling contracts and couldn’t have thought about selling again until Q1 2011.”

“The decision to leave was the right one for me,” he said. “Ideally now I would like to go back to a Pan-European or a global role. There are a number of options already, but I’m going to take a few weeks to consider them properly.”

He said that one of the key reasons for the acquisition was the quality of Ramesys’ staff.

“We would have been in recruitment mode this year, so we are evidently not overstaffed and it is clear to Capita that we have built up a good team,” he said.

Alastair Edwards, senior analyst at Canalys, said firms like Ramesys are prime targets for the larger players such as Capita.

“This is quite a common story at the moment. A company such as Ramesys has exactly the specialism and expertise that these larger service players are looking for,” Edwards said.