Octopus sells Gyro

An unnamed US private equity firm has paid £50m for Gyro International, a UK business-to-business marketing company, which has generated a 2.3x return for the vendors.

An MBO led by Octopus Investments in February 2005 alongside Electra Quoted, Beringea and Matrix Private Equity marked the beginning of a period of intense expansion by the company, which has seen it acquire five companies and open offices in Europe and the US. The consortium provided an additional £6m in October 2006 to further assist in this growth.

Gyro’s new owners have taken a majority stake with the intention to continuing the global expansion of the business as well as fund further acquisitions PR, data management and digital sectors.