Dunedin backs £44m MBO of Red Commerce
Good Afternoon,
I thought I would take the opportunity to announce some exciting news from Red Commerce.
On the early hours of Saturday morning Red Commerce finalised a management backed buyout, from our previous owners Inflexion, supported by private equity firm Dunedin for £44 million.
Inflexion have been an ambitious and proactive investor for Red and have fully supported the management team in developing this business so effectively over the last five years. In turn, Red delivered a healthy return for all involved and the management team felt they needed a fresh injection of expertise and cash from a new investor, with expertise in helping companies with international expansion, to help with the next part of its journey in becoming the Global SAP Partner of choice.
After a very competitive process we chose
Dunedin who are a leading private equity firm specialising in UK mid-market buy-outs. They specialise in the Business services, industrial and leisure markets and have a background of working with Global businesses and will be able to really help achieve our plans in the next 3-5 years. -
http://www.dunedin.com/sectors
I therefore want to let you know that as this is a secondary management buyout and still under Private equity backing, it is very much business as usual, there are no changes to the day-to-day running of Red, with the current management structure remaining in place.
The management team at Red Commerce is excited by the opportunities that lie ahead and Dunedin are very supportive of our growth plans and ambitions.
We see this growth coming in three main areas:
- Further enhancing relationships and services to our existing client base through international expansion (South America, USA and ASIA) and new service offerings.
- A continued focus on service differentiation. For example, the continued expansion of RedSolution, our SAP Advisory,, Implementation and Enablement consultancy service.
- The strengthening of our geographic footprint in existing markets (UK, Germany, France, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Brazil) and expanding our international office network in line with SAP’s growth plans.
If you are a client currently, there will be no adverse effect on your current or future dealings with Red Commerce, in fact we are always trying to improve our service. We see it as ‘enhanced’ business as usual. It's the same management team and your key contacts within the organisation remain the same.
In the short term, we will continue our investment in Europe where we have just opened offices in Munich and Zurich. We will also invest in the Americas were we recently opened an operation in Curitiba, Brazil, and are looking at establishing an operation in USA before the end of 2011.
In the longer term we will be assessing all opportunities in the other BRIC countries and elsewhere in ASIAPAC, where we are seeing an increasing demand from our clients in these regions.
Red continues to focus on the global provision of SAP professionals and the support of our international client base with a range of SAP resourcing solutions
Finally I’d like to take a moment thank all of Red Commerce’s Clients, Candidates, Management and Staff. Their continued support and hard work have helped make this business what it is today.
Best regards,
Richard Vercesi,
CEO
If you require comment or more information on this MBO or the statement above please visit our Press & Editorial pages for the correct contact by clicking here.
