Digica delivers for Bridgepoint

UK mid-market houses Bridgepoint Capital and Lyceum Capital have realised their investment in Digica, a Nottingham-based IT infrastructure services provider, by selling it to larger rival Computacenter in a €42m deal.

Computacenter, which is headquartered in Hertfordshire, UK, paid €24m in cash for the company with €18m in assumed debt. The acquisition is part of Computacenter’s strategy to expand its presence in the medium-sized public and private sectors, as well as the datacentre services markets.

Established in 1998, Digica was acquired by Bridgepoint in July 2001 in a €35m buyout from UK-based IT services conglomerate DCS Group. In November 2004 Digica acquired the managed services division of Fox IT, an independent IT consultancy business owned by Lyceum Capital, which took a substantial stake in the enlarged Digica.

Around a year after it was acquired by Bridgepoint it provided €5m for the company to open an office in Cape Town, South Africa, adding to its ones in Nottingham, Leeds and Warrington in the UK. In 2003 a new management team was installed accompanied by additional investments. In the year ended 30 June 2006, Digica’s EBITDA totalled €3m on revenue of €29m and had gross assets amounting to €25m.

The sale by Bridgepoint comes after a year in which the firm made nine exits: Robina, a UK care provider to people with profound learning difficulties; Spanish wind farm developer CESA; Hydrex, supplier of mobile operated equipment for the UK rail and materials handling sector; Aura, the Swedish long life lighting manufacturer; Carpark, the largest privately owned car park operator in the Nordic region; independent TV production company ALL3MEDIA; NES, a UK based global technical recruitment business; UK wealth manager Tilney; and Attendo, the largest provider of care services for older and disabled people in the Nordic region.