Main buys workforce software provider Orgvue in first platform UK deal; Copilot backs renewable energy software business Green Eagle
Morning all, Craig McGlashan here with the Europe Wire from the London newsroom.
A quick scheduling note to start. I’ll be at the IPEM conference in Paris tomorrow and Thursday. If you want to meet for a chat, drop me a note at craig.m@pei.group
Moving to deal news, we start with an update on Toscafund, Three Hills and Ares’ take-private pursuit of Spire Healthcare Group.
Next, Main Capital Partners has acquired a majority stake in Orgvue, a strategic workforce management software provider. We speak to Main’s Sjoerd Aarts about the deal.
We finish with news that Copilot Capital has made a majority investment in Green Eagle Solutions, company that builds automation software for renewable energy operations. We find out more about the deal with Copilot’s John Messer.
Healthcare pursuit
To start, a quick update on a take-private we’ve been following.
The directors of Spire Healthcare Group, which operates 38 hospitals and over 50 clinics in the UK, have agreed to a deal with a consortium comprising Toscafund, Three Hills and Ares.
The 250p per share offer implies an enterprise value of about £2.3 billion ($3.1 billion; €2.7 billion).
Spire first announced it had received a non-binding proposal of 250p per share in May. Toscafund is Spire’s second largest shareholder.
Bridgepoint and Triton had been among the parties in discussions about a potential takeover of Spire, but they each confirmed in March that they would not move forward with offers.
Editor’s note: Bridgepoint owns PEI Group, the publisher of PE Hub.
UK debut
Main Capital Partners has acquired a majority stake in Orgvue, a strategic workforce management software provider, in its first UK platform investment.
Headquartered in London, with offices across North America, EMEA and APAC, Orgvue supports large global enterprises in designing, planning, and optimizing their workforces through its mission-critical cloud-based platform. Orgvue serves close to 200 global enterprise customers, including organizations such as HM Government, Mars, Danone and Aviva.
The company generates “well over” £50 million ($68 million; €58 million) in annual revenues, the majority of which is recurring, Sjoerd Aarts, managing partner and head of Benelux and UK at Main, told PE Hub.
Orgvue’s next phase of growth will focus on accelerating product innovation, further expanding internationally, deepening penetration within the enterprise customer base, and pursuing selective strategic add-on acquisitions to broaden the company’s product capabilities and widen its international market reach.
We spoke to Aarts to find out more about the value creation plan.
Which attributes make Orgvue a defensible investment in the age of AI? Which will make it an AI ‘winner’?
Orgvue is a leading strategic workforce management software provider that helps organizations understand, plan and optimize their workforce. AI makes that proposition increasingly important: as organizations adopt AI, they need to fundamentally rethink how work gets done, how their organizations are structured and how people and technology work together. This makes workforce transformation a continuous strategic priority and increases the need for data-driven workforce decision-making.
Orgvue is uniquely positioned to benefit from this development given its leading international market position, blue-chip enterprise customer base and deep relationships with global consulting firms.
Can you share where the international expansion plans will be focused?
The objective is to deepen Orgvue’s presence in its core markets, particularly North America and the UK, where it already has strong enterprise and consulting relationships. Further international expansion is envisaged across North-Western Europe, among other regions, through a combination of organic growth and strategic international add-on acquisitions.
Will add-ons only be about geographical reach or will they be used for product expansion too?
Both internationalization and product expansion are key elements of the M&A strategy. On the product side, Orgvue already has a broad, best-in-class core proposition, so the opportunity is to add complementary capabilities rather than address fundamental gaps – for example in skills and talent intelligence, workforce planning, predictive analytics and benchmarking. Equally, international add-ons can accelerate geographic expansion by adding local customers, channels and market presence.
Crossing the Atlantic
Copilot Capital has made a majority investment in Green Eagle Solutions, a company that builds automation software for renewable energy operations.
Founded in Madrid in 2012 by Alejandro Cabrera and Juan Fernández, Green Eagle now operates in 18 countries, supporting renewable energy assets worldwide.
Green Eagle’s flagship product, the ARSOS Automation Suite, unifies operational data and automates workflows including fault handling, curtailments and dispatch. The platform gives operators, asset managers and energy traders full visibility into their fleets while automating the responses that previously required round-the-clock manual intervention.
The investment will enable Green Eagle to expand its go-to-market strategy, particularly in the US market. Green Eagle has already signed two of the country’s largest power producers as clients ahead of its US expansion.
PE Hub’s Nina Lindholm caught up with John Messer, founder and managing partner at Copilot, to find out more about the plans for the target.
What role does AI play in the company’s offering?
Green Eagle already uses AI-based algorithms and intelligent workflows within its ARSOS suite. Using the critical operational data Green Eagle collects and its long track record of domain expertise in the sector, there is significant scope to further leverage AI, enabling renewable energy providers to automate more processes, optimize their operations, and unlock greater value from their assets.
What makes the US such a compelling target for a company such as Green Eagle?
Despite federal energy policies having moved away from renewables, market economics and state-level policies continue to drive rapid renewable deployment, with electricity demand rising due to increases in data center and EV load. Green Eagle has already established a significant foothold in the US without a large on-the-ground presence. The focus now is consolidating this foundation and building the team to capture a greater share of one of the world’s largest renewable energy markets.
That’s all from me today. Obey Martin Manayiti will write to you from the US tomorrow and Nina Lindholm will fill in for me tomorrow and Thursday while I’m at IPEM.
If you fancy a chat at the conference, drop me a note at craig.m@pei.group
Cheers,
Craig
