BCN Group sells to ECI Partners

BCN Group sells to ECI Partners

Beech Tree Private Equity makes 5.3x its investment through sale of Manchester-based MSP

Manchester-based MSP BCN Group has been sold to ECI Partners, with its former owner claiming to have made 5.3x on their initial investment in 2018.

The Microsoft partner has been sold to former Content+Cloud investor ECI Partners and marks an exit for Beech Tree Private Equity which first invested in BCN in 2018.

BCN claims to have grown its revenue from £10m to £40m over the past four years under Beech Tree and transformed itself from an IT hardware reseller to a Microsoft-focused MSP with a "comprehensive digital transformation offering".

With its base in Manchester, BCN operates via a further three offices across the North of England, employing more than 220 staff of which 150 are trained support staff and technical engineers.

BCN has made five acquisitions under Beech Tree, including its recent deals for Cloud2 and PublicView in May 2021 and March 2022 respectively.

ECI Partners says that it intends to "continue this buy-and-build strategy going forwards".

The private equity firm claims to invest in growth businesses valued up to £300m.

It previously invested in Content+Cloud in 2016 and made six bolt-on acquisitions with the business before selling it to Nordic VAR Advania in December, making a 4.1x return on its investment.

"BCN Group is a fantastic business that puts the customer at the heart of its organisation. The rising importance of IT, digital transformation, and cloud adoption, combined with BCN's fantastic customer reputation, means that BCN is incredibly well positioned to further expand its capability, geographical presence and customer offering both organically and through M&A," said partner at ECI, Mark Keeley.

"We're delighted to be partnering with Rob and the team for the next stage of their journey."

BCN CEO Rob Davies said: "In this age of digital transformation, there is a phenomenal growth opportunity for BCN Group to support clients to solve their IT challenges and achieve the best possible results from technology for their business. ECI are an experienced technology investor, so we are delighted to be partnering with them to deliver on our organic growth potential and to continue to deliver on our M&A strategy. I'd also like to thank Beech Tree for their investment and support over the last four years."

Simon Kelf, co-founder of BCN Group added: "It has been a great experience over the last four years. We have built a market leading management team and importantly created what we set out to achieve. The organic growth supplemented by selected acquisitions have allowed us to become a market leader in the space."