Capita sells off reseller Trustmarque for £111m

Services giant sells off ‘non-core’ businesses to strengthen its balance sheet

Capita has agreed the sale of IT reseller and solutions provider Trustmarque to private equity firm One Equity Partners for £111m, bringing an end to almost six years of ownership.

Trustmarque, which provides solutions in areas such as modern workplace, security and cloud - as well as managed services and hardware re-sale - was first purchased by Capita in 2016 for £57m.

But the professional services giant has been selling off what it calls "non-core businesses" to strengthen its balance sheet and to achieve a target of £700m of proceeds from disposals - a target which it claims has now been exceeded.

The sale of Trustmarque follows that of its Secure Solutions and Services (SSS) business to NEC Software Solutions for £62m, which was announced in October last year, and software business AMT Sybex to Jonas Computing for up to £40m in December.

Mid-market investor One Equity Partners has a history of investing in channel businesses on an international level. It funded US reseller CDI in 2019 and has previously invested in European resellers including Italian VAR Lutech and Norway-based software reseller Crayon.

"We are pleased to have agreed the sale of Trustmarque to One Equity Partners following a competitive sale process," Jon Lewis, Capita CEO said.

"I am delighted that, once this sale is completed, we will have exceeded our disposals target - and achieved this much earlier than originally planned.

"It marks another significant step towards materially reducing our debt, as we continue to simplify and strengthen Capita, and become a more successful business for the long term.

"We are now focused on selling the remaining businesses in our portfolio division, with the goal of disposing of the majority by the end of 2022."

Trustmarque - which counts Microsoft, HPE, AWS, IBM, Dell among its vendor partners - had net reported revenue and profit before tax for the year to 31 December 2020 of £122m and £16m respectively, Capita said.

Capita also added that Trustmarque's senior management team and employees will remain with the business.