Capita offloads Trustmarque

Almost six years after it acquired Trustmarque, Capita has decided to sell the business off to One Equity Partners for £111m. That figure could rise to £115m if certain conditions are reached and if the deal gets the green light.

Capita has been divesting parts of its business to focus on core activities and decided that the time was right to offload Trustmarque, which reported net revenues of £122m and pre-tax profits of £16m for the year to 31 December 2020 and its gross assets were £240m at 30 June 2021.

Trustmarque is a name that has long been recognised in the channel, with the software and services player having top-tier status with a number of vendors, including Microsoft.

Trustmarque’s senior management and employees will remain with the business as it starts a fresh chapter and joins a growing list of businesses that have been divested by Capita in the past 18 months and follows the recent sale of AMT Sybex and Secure Solutions and Services.

Capita is focusing on not only improving its balance sheet, with the firm aiming to hit the target of £700m in disposal proceeds by June this year, but focusing on the public service and experience businesses.

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

“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.”

The firm still has a few more sales to complete in its Portfolio division and Lewis said it expected to dispose of the majority by the end of this year.

Back in June 2016, Capita forked out £57m to acquire Trustmarque from its parent company, Ardbid, with a view to adding the firm’s licensing and software knowledge to its portfolio.

At the time, the rationale for the deal was around Capita’s desire to enhance its  growing Capita Technology Solutions business. That strategy has changed over the past couple of years, leading to a parting of the ways.

Trustmarque is familiar with the idea of having fresh owners and before Capita, the business had been picked up by Liberata, ultimately owned by Ardbid, in September 2014 after it moved away from investor Dunedin and remained one of Microsoft’s major UK partners.