Beech Tree Private Equity today announces an investment in Obsequio Group, the technology driven compliance and safety solutions provider. Beech Tree’s investment, supported by an additional acquisition facility from Beechbrook Capital, will support Obsequio’s ambitious organic growth strategy, as well as provide additional funding for further M&A.
Founded by Simon Cashmore and Simon Abley and headquartered in Leicestershire, Obsequio currently trades under its three core brands of CDS, Genex and Drax. Today Obsequio also announces the acquisition of APS Security & Fire, the Nottingham based fire and security company with over 20 years of heritage in the design, installation and maintaining of intruder and fire alarms, CCTV, access control and integrated systems.
The combined Group provides a range of technology driven compliance solutions to ensure the environments where people spend their time, whether to live in, learn in or work in, are completely safe.
Obsequio’s customers include hospitals, Universities, local authorities, leisure centres and student accommodation providers who all place their trust in Obsequio’s highly skilled engineers to supply, test and maintain safety systems across fire detection and protection, water quality management, security, electrical safety and energy efficiency/usage.
Simon Abley, Managing Director at Obsequio said:
“Customer service is at the heart of everything we do. We don’t compromise on quality and always seek to deploy the best people, the right process and leading technologies. Our aim is always to deliver outstanding services, projects and outcomes to all of our customers, every time”.
Having already acquired six businesses over the last two years, Obsequio is eager to acquire more complementary businesses in the life safety and compliance services arena and is in active discussions with a number of potential targets. Beech Tree’s investment and the follow on acquisition facility provided by Beechbrook gives the business significant firepower to execute this strategy. Beechbrook have also rolled over their existing facility as part of the transaction.
Simon Cashmore, Executive Chairman at Obsequio said:
“We have made a number of acquisitions over the last two years and feel like now is the right time to bring on a private equity partner who can help us take the business to the next level. We know that Beech Tree share our vision and ambition of building a standout technology led compliance services business and their experience in successfully executing buy and build strategies like ours will be invaluable over the next few years”.
Commenting on the transaction, Ben Cartwright, Investment Director at Beech Tree, said:
“From the beginning, we felt a strong cultural alignment with Simon and Simon which is incredibly important to us. Tech-enabled support services is a key investment area for us, and having already spent considerable time looking at the market prior to meeting the Obsequio team, it became clear very quickly that we had a shared view of the market and the opportunity to build a market leading compliance services business centred around best in class technology. We will immediately be looking to originate bolt-on opportunities in the fire safety space, as well as looking at further acquisitions in areas such as water compliance, building management systems and electronic security.”
