Lyceum Capital invests in Sabio
Lyceum Capital, the growth investor announces today a £50 million deal with Sabio, the customer contact centre technology specialist. In addition to its initial investment, Lyceum has committed further capital to Sabio to enable the management team to augment ambitious organic growth plans with a number of targeted acquisitions.
Based in London with operations in Glasgow and Singapore, Sabio is a market-leading service provider of contact centre telecommunication solutions and delivers transformational technology and managed services to its clients. The business serves and supports many of the largest call centres in the UK, including the AA, together with major organisations across the world, including DHL. Founded in 1998, Sabio has successfully grown to revenues in excess of £40 million by focusing on the delivery of exceptional customer service and partnering with leading organisations such as Avaya, Nuance and Verint. With a UK market share of 10%, Sabio is the largest independent provider of its services and has delivered average annual growth of 15% for each of the past three years.
The company founders will remain involved in the next phase of business growth. Following the completion of the deal, Lee Shorten remains Chairman and Andy Roberts has become CEO, having served on the board since 2003, most recently as COO.
The Lyceum team was led by Simon Hitchcock who joins the board alongside fellow partner Geoff Neville, supported by Adam Lewis, Anne Sofie Staunsbaek and Mehul Kantaria.
Andy Roberts, Chief Executive Officer of Sabio commented: “I am delighted to be partnering with Lyceum for Sabio’s next stage of growth. I have been consistently impressed by Lyceum’s deep understanding of our business and the market in which we operate. We look forward to working with them to build Sabio into an industry champion with an even greater market share.”
Simon Hitchcock, Partner at Lyceum Capital said: “We identified Sabio as a sector leader with great potential for organic growth and an ideal platform for acquisitions in a fragmented market. The UK has the most sophisticated contact centre operations and highest adoption of technology solutions in the world, and Sabio is at the heart of that. Given its excellent management team and clear understanding of its customers’ needs, we believe Sabio is ideally placed to exploit new opportunities and acquire other businesses in the wider market and internationally.”
Seb Henkes, Founder and former Chief Executive Officer said: “Partnering with Lyceum is a natural progression for Sabio and bringing on board external shareholders who evidently understand our market will accelerate the future growth of our business. My fellow founders and I remain invested in the business and we are confident that it has a bright future under the new leadership.”