Grant Thornton advises Roc Technologies Limited Roc has sold a minority stake to BGF and acquired City Change Management

September 2017
Roc Technologies
Adviser to Roc Technologies on their sale to BGF and acquisition of City Change Management
£undisclosed
Grant Thornton team
Technology, media and telecommunications
Sell side
Corporate finance
Flag of the United Kingdom

We are delighted to have advised Roc on their minority sale to BGF and acquisition of City Change Management.

Agibility, trading as Roc Technologies (Roc), was established in 2013 by a highly experienced management team to provide business transformation services to public and private sector clients.

The growth of the business has been remarkable and Roc was named the UK’s fastest growing IT services provided in the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 in 2016.

The shareholders of Roc appointed our corporate finance team to support them in raising capital to facilitate the growth of the business and to fund acquisitions. The shareholders set a number of “must have” criteria for the terms of the investment, which reflected their faith in the business plus the importance to them of a genuine partnership with an incoming investor.

In addition, the management team at Roc had identified City Change Management (CCM), a rapidly growing project and programme consultancy based in London and with complementary capabilities and clients, as their first acquisition target and management wished to conclude the investment and the acquisition at the same time.

We supported Roc in the production of a high-quality business plan which supported the growth potential of the business and the strategic logic of the CCM acquisition. We ran a highly competitive and tightly managed process to identify those investors who were willing and able to meet the shareholders’ predefined criteria for an investment partner.

Given Roc’s growth and profile, and the quality of the management team, the business attracted a great deal of attention and it proved necessary to filter potentially interested parties. It became apparent that BGF offered the most attractive investment terms and that there was a clear cultural fit between the BGF and the Roc teams. The enlarged Roc Group, led by CEO Matt Franklin and COO Steve Shirley will clearly go from strength to strength.

We were able to navigate the concerns and requirements of the individual Roc and CCM shareholders to pull together a transaction which delivered everyone's objectives.

Testimonial

“The Roc team are extremely grateful for the complete commitment and support provided to us by the Grant Thornton team and all of our advisers. The transaction was extremely complex and time consuming. The fact that we managed to achieve a successful completion with BGF as well as to acquire CCM highlights the tenacity and quality of Wendy and her team. “

Matt Franklin Chief Executive Officer, Roc Technologies Limited

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