Oakley Capital Private Equity III (“Fund III”) has completed a deal to acquire the assets and operations of Plesk, at an enterprise value of $105 million, as a carve out from the Parallels Group. Fund III has invested $27.4 million (€25.2 million) for a 51% controlling stake in the business. The investment in Plesk represents another primary, proprietary deal in one of Oakley’s core sectors, originating from long-standing relationships within the hosting industry.

First released in 1999, Plesk is one of the most widely used control panels and software platforms for simplifying the lives of Web Professionals. Plesk’s web-server management tools secure and automate server and website administration as well as operations. Key features include the automation and management of domain names, email accounts, web applications, programming languages, databases and infrastructure tasks to provide a ready-to-code environment and strong security across all layers and operating systems. The Plesk software platform operates on more than 350,000 servers globally, supporting the operations of more than 10 million websites and 18 million email boxes. Plesk is available in 32 languages globally and many of the top cloud and hosting service providers partner with Plesk.

Plesk generated revenues of $28 million and EBITDA of approximately $14 million for the year ended 31 December 2016. The business is expected to drive growth through a number of clearly identified revenue and operational initiatives, made possible by focussed management following its separation from the Parallels Group.

Arthur Mornington, Partner Oakley Capital, commented:

“We are delighted to be investing in Plesk, which is a widely used software platform with significant growth potential in a sector we know well. We are excited to be partnering with a strong management team and we believe that our combined experience will support the business as it moves into the next phase of its development.”

Summa Equity invests in Pagero Group, a company that develops and markets Pagero Online, a cloud-based network platform for communication of business documents within the purchase-to-pay, order-to-cash and logistic-to-pay (TMS) processes. Summa Equity becomes the largest shareholder. CEO Bengt Nilsson and management will remain invested alongside Summa Equity.

Christian Melby, Partner at Summa Equity, said : “In our extensive search for the next global trend, we have met a lot of companies with interesting applications for business support within procurement and order-to-cash. However, most of them were either built on a closed network or traditional EDI connections. We believe in Pagero’s philosophy of offering an open platform, connecting businesses with all their customers and suppliers in an easy and cost-efficient way that allows room for correct and fast decision-making in a global and competitive world.”

Since its foundation, Pagero has developed into a modern SaaS provider with more than 80 per cent recurring revenues, over 20,000 customers, more than 1.5 million transactions per month, and a network that reaches millions of companies directly and via roaming agreements. The value-added services enable Pagero’s customers to achieve accurate data and obtain a 100 per cent digital inbound and outbound business document flow, resulting in minimal error handling, compliance with local VAT regulation and control over company spend. Pagero Online is independent of ERP systems and therefore suits companies of all sizes and within all industries. It is also interconnected with an extensive number of other networks for global reach.

Bengt Nilsson, CEO of Pagero, said: “Summa Equity’s confidence in Pagero is a clear sign that our choice of strategy and business model are right. Thanks to Summa Equity’s funding and commitment to Pagero, we can continue with our growth strategy and bring our services to a market largely driven by legislation with high demands on compliance. Our goal is to be the top-of-mind player on the market enabling companies all over the globe to streamline their business processes with accurate data and a 100 per cent digital business document flow.”

Pagero has over 190 employees and a strong innovation focus, with 50 employees in R&D. It is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with offices in Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rome, Madrid, Paris, Istanbul and Dubai. Pagero is in an expansive growth phase and saw revenues grow to SEK 168m in 2016.

The investment will be made through a rights issue of SEK 100 million and the acquisition of shares from existing shareholders. Summa Equity will support Pagero through continued investments in R&D, new markets, and people with the ambition of sustaining the company’s high growth trajectory. Pagero is expected to benefit from the global trends towards increasing digitalisation and automation of business processes, and increasing regulatory demands on compliance.

Ends

For more information, please contact:

Christian Melby, Partner, Summa Equity, +47 958 13 277, christian.melby@summaequity.com

Bengt Nilsson, CEO, Pagero Group, +46 708 11 22 11, bengt.nilsson@pagero.com

About Summa Equity

Summa Equity was formed in 2016 by partners with a shared vision of building a leading specialised private equity firm in the Nordic lower mid-market, positioned to capture the investment opportunity provided by the thematic megatrends expected to drive growth over the long term. The firm focuses on sectors related to four megatrend-driven themes: resource scarcity, energy efficiency, changing demographics and tech-enabled businesses. Summa Equity closed its first fund in February 2017 with commitments of SEK 4.5 billion.

New Access Banking Software, a global provider of critical front-office software solutions to the private banking industry, announced today the acquisition of the Ambit Private Banking business from FIS™. The Ambit Private Banking business, provides a comprehensive suite of software solutions, including Apsys and CIM, designed to help Swiss and international private banks to build a strong competitive advantage. The solution suite includes core banking, client management, analysis and control, market management, fund accounting and alternative investments solutions.

This transaction will create significant commercial synergies between New Access and Ambit Private Banking solutions. It will also allow the group to further invest in R&D to develop software solutions adapted to the private banking market shaped by disruptive technologies, and tightening regulatory requirements. “New Access’ solutions are aimed at turning these challenges into opportunities, and getting tangible benefits for their customers”, said Vitus Rotzer, General Manager of the Ambit Private Banking business, who becomes Managing Director responsible for business development of the combined group. “We are confident the addition of the Ambit Private Banking solution will benefit customers of both businesses through an enriched product and services offering, while bringing a comprehensive, integrated solution to the private banking market.”

HgCapital has announced today an investment in Mitratech, a leading global provider of legal, risk and compliance software serving multinationals and SMEs across Europe and the US. HgCapital will be the lead investor in the new transaction structure, alongside TA Associates and the management team at Mitratech. The terms of this transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 1987, Mitratech offers mission critical enterprise legal management (“ELM”) and enterprise risk management (“ERM”) software; its flagship product offering is a sector leading and award-winning legal matter management and spend management platform for large corporate legal departments, enabling customers to manage their internal workflows, documents (“system of record”), deadlines and communications, as well as providing an e-billing solution to collaborate with external legal advisors on budgeting and invoicing. Today the company provides legal, compliance, and operational risk solutions to 1,200 corporations across the globe with more than 500,000 users in over 160 countries. Its operations are supported by offices in the US, UK, and Australia.

This investment by the HgCapital TMT team follows many years of experience in the regulatory-driven business software space. Mitratech demonstrates many of the business model characteristics that HgCapital looks for, including: a business-critical product; a high proportion of repeatable revenues; strong customer loyalty; an opportunity for M&A; and a strong management team with a proven track record in both organic and M&A-led growth.

“We are delighted to be working with Jason Parkman and his talented management team, alongside TA Associates,” said Jean-Baptiste Brian, a Director in the HgCapital TMT team. “HgCapital has a strong track record of successful investments in regulatory compliance-driven software companies. We are impressed with the excellent progress Mitratech has made in establishing itself as a global player in this sector, and we look forward to supporting their continued growth going forward.”

“TA Associates has been a strong partner for us over the past 18 months, and an important part of our unprecedented recent growth. We look forward to continuing this relationship for years to come,” said Jason Parkman, Mitratech CEO. “Our new partnership with HgCapital brings us additional strength to fuel our growth in legal and risk management generally, as well as the focus to accelerate our current momentum of international expansion. The combination of these two strategic investors provides more access to global resources and enables us to invest even more to deliver innovation and value for our clients.”

“Since forming our strategic partnership with Mitratech in September 2015, it has been a pleasure to partner with Jason Parkman and his team,” said Hythem El-Nazer, a Managing Director at TA Associates. “The business has more than doubled during our partnership and, more importantly, Mitratech has solidified itself as a leader in the Enterprise Legal and Risk Management software market. We look forward to continuing to support Mitratech and partnering with HgCapital as the business continues to expand globally.”

Norvestor VIIL.P.(“Norvestor”), a fund managed by Norvestor Equity AS, has signed an agreement to invest in IT Gården i Landskrona AB(“IT Gården”)

IT Gården has experienced solid growth over the last yearsand established an attractive position
as a leading regional IT services outsourcing provider in the Skåne region in Sweden. The company delivers IT services within IT outsourcing and infrastructure, virtualisation and client platforms as well as related products.

“IT Gården has since its inception focused on delivering superior customer experience and efficient IT solutions.
Over the last couple of years, we have been searching for a partner that shares our vision of putting the customer experience first. In Norvestor we have found a partner that truly understands our business and that can help us, both to expand geographically but also to explore new business opportunities.
We are extremely happy about this new partnership and we are confident that it will allow us to deliver an even better customer experience in the future”, says Jan Swedin, CEO of IT Gården. “We have followed the market for outsourcing of IT services for several years, and are very pleased with the agreement to partner with IT Gården.

The company has established a unique position within IT outsourcing for small and medium-
sized enterprises in Southern Sweden. We see a significant potential for continued growth for the company, in addition to several consolidation possibilities in a fragmented IT outsourcing market, making it an ideal platform for Norvestor.”,
says Henning Vold,Partner at Norvestor Equity and chairman designate in IT Gården.
Following the acquisition, Norvestor will become the largest shareholder in IT Gården with approximately 77
% of the shares; the management and employees will hold the remaining shares.

IT Gården is headquartered in Landskrona, Sweden, and employs 90 people.
The company had consolidated revenues of NOK 179 million in 2015 1 and NOK 197 millionin 2016¹.
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1 IT Gården’s financial year ends in June