Acquisition of Ekon

RNS Number : 8070T

Oakley Capital Investments Limited

25 March 2019

 

25 March 2019

Oakley Capital Investments Limited

Acquisition of Ekon

Oakley Capital Investments Limited¹ (AIM: OCI, the "Company") is pleased to announce that Oakley Capital Private Equity III² ("Fund III") has agreed to acquire UNIT4 Business Software Ibérica, S.A. ("Ekon"), a leading Spanish provider of business software, from its current shareholder Unit4, N.V.

Founded in 1963, Ekon provides Enterprise Resource Planning ("ERP") software to over 1,000 small and mid-sized businesses in Spain. The company generates revenues of c.€20m from sales of its integrated software suite, which includes solutions for finance, payroll and CRM, as well as dedicated vertical modules for manufacturing, wholesale, health, retail and construction. The service is available in on-premise and hosted deployments, or via Ekon's Cloud, which offers a configurable ERP solution using a software-as-a-service ("SaaS") delivery model. Ekon's software is developed exclusively in Spain, making it one of the few local players of scale in a market that, aside from the dominant international vendors, is highly fragmented.

OCI's indirect contribution through its interest in Fund III, is expected to be approximately £20 million, dependent on the capital structure at completion. Completion is subject to a demerger process to separate non-Ekon activities from Unit4 Business Software Ibérica, S.A.

Ekon will be Oakley Capital's³ first investment in Spain, its second software platform in Fund III, and sits within one of Oakley's key target sectors, TMT.

Juan Antonio Fernández, CEO, Ekon commented:

"We are grateful to Unit4 for their support over the past 12 years and look forward to partnering with Oakley as we embark upon our next phase of growth."

Peter Dubens, Managing Partner, Oakley Capital commented:

"With highly visible revenues, a loyal customer base and a clear structural growth opportunity, Ekon demonstrates many of the key characteristics that Oakley targets in an investment. We believe the business has a best-in-class solution and is well positioned to capitalise on the growing demand for cloud ERP. We very much look forward to supporting Juan Antonio and his team as they accelerate growth over the coming years."

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For further information please contact:

Oakley Capital Investments Limited

[phone]

Steven Tredget, Investor Relations

Greenbrook Communications Ltd

[phone]

Alex Jones / Matthew Goodman / Gina Bell

Liberum Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser & Broker)

[phone]

Gillian Martin / Owen Matthews

Notes:

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014.

¹ About Oakley Capital Investments ("OCI")

OCI is an AIM listed investment vehicle, which provides access to the Oakley funds. It is a liquid vehicle that provides capital growth and dividends to investors.

LEI Number: 213800KW6MZUK12CQ815

² The Oakley Funds

Oakley Capital Private Equity L.P. and its successor funds, Oakley Capital Private Equity II and Oakley Capital Private Equity III, are unlisted focused mid-market private equity funds with the aim of providing investors with significant long-term capital appreciation. The investment strategy of the funds is to focus on buy-out opportunities in industries with the potential for growth, consolidation and performance improvement.

³The Investment Adviser

Founded in 2002, Oakley Capital has demonstrated the repeated ability to acquire attractive growth assets at attractive prices. To do this they rely on their sector and regional expertise, their ability to tackle transaction complexity and their deal generating entrepreneur network.

 

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