Despite the impact of COVID-19 managed service provider refinances and pays tribute to the determination and brilliance of advisors
Managed services provider eacs has secured a multi-million refinance deal thanks to brokers Knight Corporate Finance, and corporate lender Shawbrook Bank.
Founded in 1994, eacs is an IT expert supplying practical, innovative and cost-effective Managed Services and IT Solutions to mid-market businesses across all sectors.
Knight Corporate Finance raised the debt to enable eacs to not only refinance an existing facility, but to upsize the debt on more favourable terms to support the growth of the company. The funding was secured through Shawbrook Bank. The figure has not been disclosed.
Adam Zoldan, Director, Knight Corporate Finance, stated: “We were delighted to work with eacs, having worked with Anne and Kevin on their initial fund-raise to acquire eacs. The success of the business in helping customers with legacy equipment transform to a Cloud and managed service solution enabled us to attract competition from a range of institutions to fund the next stage of eacs’ growth.
“The timing for the fund-raise was not ideal with lock-down commencing part-way through the process. However, the strength and depth of eacs expertise, its blue-chip customers delivering recurring revenue and some compelling growth prospects ensured that the deal was able to complete at a time when many similar deals have fallen away.”
Kevin Timms, CEO, eacs, stated: “We are absolutely delighted to have been able to refinance the business in what is one of the most turbulent economic climates we have seen in our lifetime. There is no doubt that it is testament to the business that not only did we successfully secure refinancing, but we did so with increased scrutiny, financial forecasting and crisis simulations and impact assessments.
“There has been much anecdotal evidence that the current COVID-19 crisis has driven digital change, this has certainly been our experience as we went through this process in recent months. But we did so and that is illustrative not only of the grip and understand we and our advisors have on the business, but also because we are in a sector that is demonstrating a degree of resilience. Before the coronavirus outbreak, many businesses had little interest in exploring video conferencing, remote working at scale or attending a virtual event. Allowing every employee to work from home for once a week was also unthinkable. Today, many are now beginning to see the art of the possible and explore new ways of working and thinking and we are helping those businesses digitally transform at speed,” added Mr Timms.
Adam Zoldan concluded: “All credit to eacs management team who were able to deliver at the most challenging of times for a fund-raise and I am sure the IT Services industry as a whole will take heart from this success story. eacshas proven to be extremely robust during the pandemic and many will recognise the impact made by eacs and its peers in keeping the UK open for business and able to adapt to the new normal. Our view is that a combination of strong cash generation and growth prospects will ensure that funding will be available and value creation prospects will remain strong for some time.”
Daisy Reeves, Banking Partner at BCLP who led the multi-disciplinary legal team for eacs commented: “BCLP has been delighted to assist eacs in both its financings, originally with BMS in 2017 and now with Shawbrook. It is testament to the strength of the company that they were able to secure financing at this difficult time when borrowers and their balance sheets are coming under increased financial scrutiny where ‘new money’ is concerned. eacs was able to demonstrate its overall value in the market, resulting in a very successful refinance.”
Christian Heidl, Senior Adviser, BMS Finance, added: “eacs has been a successful investment for BMS Finance based on a trusting partnership since the start three years ago. We are very pleased to have supported Kevin and his team in building a leading provider of IT Solutions and Managed Services to the UK mid-market. eacs has outgrown BMS Finance and we wish the team every success when realising eacs next phase of growth.”
“I would like to thank Christian and the team at BMS who have been very supportive through the last three years of our growth with them and I look forward to our relationship with Shawbrook. We had fantastic support from Knight Corporate Finance and BCLP that ensured we got this done effectively,” concluded Mr Timms.