Maven leads £9m investment in HCS Control Systems

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Maven Capital Partners (Maven), a leading Private Equity and Alternative Asset manager, has led an investment in HCS Control Systems (HCS) via a Buy-in Management Buy-out transaction (BIMBO) alongside the Simmons Parallel Energy Fund.   Maven and Simmons have each provided £4.25m of equity funding to support business growth, with additional investment from Front Row Energy Partners, a consortium of upstream industry specialists which invests in high quality energy service companies.
 
Headquartered in Glenrothes, Fife, HCS is a specialist manufacturer of engineered mechanical, hydraulic and electrical systems for the subsea oil and gas sector.   HCS’s integrated service offering includes design, engineering, specialist welding and fabrication processes.   Established in 1997, the business has earned a reputation for delivering fast track design, manufacture and testing of topside and subsea control systems to a global blue chip customer base including GE, Cameron, Schlumberger and Expro.
 
Led by a dynamic and experienced management team, HCS has built a strong working relationship with its clients, based on the ability to supply high quality and reliable products on time.   The business operates in a market which is now benefitting from record levels of investment in new developments, alongside significant upgrade programmes for existing assets and infrastructure.

HCS is one of a small number of companies in its sector with the requisite knowledge and engineering skills to meet the increasing levels of customer demand, which has resulted in HCS’s strong recent trading record and a record order book.
 
The deal will provide capital to support the continuing growth of HCS, including site expansion into the Aberdeen market, as the business looks to service rising market demand.
 
Incoming CEO Brett Lestrange led the experienced BIMBO team, which includes Tony Kitchener as Business Development Director, Kenny Balfour as COO and a new CFO in Neil McGuinness.   The management team will be further strengthened by the appointment of Graeme Coutts as Non-executive Chairman.   Graeme was previously the CEO of Expro, a former FTSE 250 business with 4,500 employees worldwide, and led the 2008 Institutional Buy-out to Candover/Goldman Sachs.   Brett Le Strange and Tony Kitchener have extensive networks of industry contacts which will be the initial focus of business development activity, as HCS looks to drive internationalisation by engaging with overseas partners and selectively entering new geographic markets.
 
Kudos IFS worked in conjunction with Maven Capital Partners UK LLP, with whom the firm has a long standing professional partnership.   The team was led by Alex Sutherland, Employee Benefit Analyst.
 
He commented: "By following our robust due diligence programme and by conducting an in-depth audit of the pension and ancillary benefit programmes we successfully identified all the hidden risks and potential liabilities.   We would now wish HCS and their staff every success going forward."