Advanced bags UK's 'biggest software investment in a decade'

CEO tells CRN the vendor will make a minimum of two more acquisitions before end of 2019

London-based private equity (PE) firm BC Partners has bought a 50 per cent stake in UK software vendor Advanced.

The investment is £2bn, Advanced CEO Gordon Wilson confirmed to CRN, adding that it is "one of the biggest, if not the biggest" software investment the UK has seen in a decade.

The Slough-based vendor was acquired by PE firm Vista Equity Partners in 2015, which will continue to be an investor and partner with BC to expand Advanced's business.

Advanced was founded in 2008 and has a workforce of around 2,500. It supplies healthcare, business and learning management software and services.

Wilson (pictured) said that the deal is a result of both the current trend of PE investing in technology companies and the pre-existing relationship between Vista and BC Partners, who co-own government, risk and compliance specialist Navex Global.

"If you look back in the general market over the last couple of years, [you see] more and more private equity firms are partnering on larger transactions," Wilson said.

"It's been almost five years since Vista acquired the business, so we were thinking of a general process, probably some time in the autumn and winter.

"But BC was interested in the business, it had a good experience working with Vista with Navex, so they entered into a dialogue a couple of months ago saying ‘Would it not make sense for us to partner again?'"

Advanced has launched 14 cloud products in the past 18 months, which Wilson said will spur on a "significant" expansion of its partner network.

He added that he has seen a number of resellers migrating from competitor Pegasus and signing up for Advanced's Business Cloud Essentials, its ERP solution.

"Our cloud products will open up new opportunities for partners in the particular verticals where they operate," he said.

"I think it's a huge opportunity for additional resellers to come to the market.

"There are products out there - for example, Pegasus, which is obviously an older-generation product - and I can see quite a few Pegasus resellers getting excited about actually taking our brand new SaaS products and reselling them into their customer base."

Advanced has undergone an M&A spree in the past 18 months, including workforce management firm Kirona and infrastructure modernisation specialist Modern Systems in April.

The chief exec stated that there would be a "minimum of two" more acquisitions this year, saying that the vendor was in conversation with a number of companies.

He added that he is "delighted" with the deal between the pair of PE houses.

"The whole team and I think it is a fantastic opportunity for our investors, customers and for our staff," Wilson said.

"Having two excellent, collaborative investors supporting us as a business is genuinely a fantastic thing and I'm really excited about the next four or five years.

"I think it has the potential to act as a catalyst for us to ultimately become the best, and potentially the number one, provider of business software applications in the UK in four or five years' time."