YFM doubles money

YFM Group, the UK private equity investor aimed at smaller businesses, has made a 2.23x return on the sale of a slice of its stake in Tekton, a Manchester-based business which specialises in construction software.

The sale comes as a part of a re-structuring of Tekton’s finances, which has seen it acquire software house SiteStream from its US owners Mitek Systems for £12.6m. The deal was facilitated by a recapitalisation with Inflexion Private Equity providing £4.6m and HSBC investing £5.3m by way of bank facilities. This allowed YFM to make a return on its investment as well as retain loan notes and shares representing 7.2% of the new group.

YFM has been invested in Tekton (formerly Intuita Group) since December 2005 when it paid £700,000 for its stake. YFM later used money from British Smaller Companies VCT, the North West Business Investment Scheme and the British Smaller Technology Companies VCT to help finance the acquisition of E-Vision Limited, another software and services provider to the construction sector. In June 2006 the Tekton Group grew further with the acquisition of CIT, a further rival.

Over the course of the last 12 months YFM has participated in 121 deals investing over £21m in 90 companies; due to the leveraging effect of venture capital the total value of these deals was £122 million. This makes YFM probably the most active investor in the UK.

This realisation also marks another successful exit for the British Smaller Companies VCT (BSC VCT) following recent exits for Secure Message Services and Harlands of Hull.