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Our Approach

Put simply, we partner high-quality businesses and management teams, to deliver transformational growth.
With one of the largest investment and specialist research teams in our market,
we have the expertise and resources to help each business deliver the growth
strategy that's right for them.

INVESTMENT FOCUS

We partner with businesses that:
  • have a differentiated market position
  • have the potential for expansion in the UK or internationally
  • are operating in the service-based sectors of:

sectors-diagram-2024

BUY & BUILD STRATEGY

We help deliver successful growth through:

  • 'Buy'

    Strategic acquisition rapidly accelerates a company's growth. By adding new geographies, clients and expanding the service offering, businesses can rapidly scale and consolidate market share. Sovereign have partnered over 60 businesses to deliver more than 350 follow-on Buy & Build transactions.

  • 'Build'

    We support intensive organic growth. This enables businesses to rapidly roll out new sites, invest in systems, technology and infrastructure, optimise their sales and marketing, and recruit key talent and more. We back enterprises where we believe our expertise, network and active partnership approach can significantly enhance their opportunities.

Partnership In Action

BIOSCRIPT

Strategy

To support the management's growth ambitions through a strategy of Buy & Build.

Result

In just over 12 months since Sovereign's investment, three acquisitions were completed. This strengthened Bioscript's end-to-end service offering by extending the breadth and depth of its services across the pharmaceutical product lifecycle, and brought additional capabilities in medical affairs, global market access strategy and payer value communications. The combined group brings together more than 220 dedicated experts.

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3 acquisitions in just over 12 months

We are thrilled to share our journey with Sovereign. They have deep sector expertise and an ability to enhance our growth journey through insightful M&A support and value creation strategies. We feel the partnership has added considerable acceleration to the development of our global scientific communications platform.

Dr Gabrielle Silver / CEO / Bioscript

ACTICA CONSULTING

Strategy

To accelerate organic growth alongside an ambitious strategic acquisition programme.

Result

A specialist provider of technical and business services, Actica's existing capabilities have been augmented to support accelerated organic growth and to provide a platform from which to make acquisitions. In the first year we helped the business to successfully recruit both a CFO and a Chief People Officer. We also helped the business to refine their existing recruitment processes which resulted in an additional c.40 fee-earning consultants being recruited in the first year of our investment, a 35% increase in the consultant team.

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35%+ increase in consultants in year one

While Actica has grown resiliently and consistently for many years, Sovereign's support and investment has helped us to focus upon the critical investments the business needs to sustain and accelerate this growth in future. Systems and people investment has begun and positive results can already be observed within the business with clear plans in place to achieve more.

Dr Mike Murphy / Managing Director / Actica Consulting

AGENA GROUP

Strategy

To support the management team to digitally enable a car parking management business via the acquisition of Atria, a software back-office processing business, the third of four acquisitions that forms the Agena Group.

Result

Atria has been a key driver of efficiency for the business, enabling faster processing and, using data processing and visualisation technology, is able to monitor the business on a real time basis. This exceptional insight enables Agena to progress a variety of business improvement initiatives and monitor the results in a live environment. Examples include a 45% efficiency improvement within appeals management and a 305% increase in camera uptime to 99.84%. New capability currently being developed will also enable digital permit solutions, cashless payments and fleet bureau integration, all delivering further efficiency benefits.

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45% efficiency improvement

It has been great to see the difference in our operational performance since working with Sovereign. We have embraced automation and improvements in our tech, and have made significant improvements to our operating costs and quality of service. The key to all of this has been data and how using its insights allows us to target our investments for the greatest return.

Paul Dawson / CEO / Agena Group

BIMM INSTITUTE

Strategy

To scale an established UK contemporary music education provider into an international operator offering a broader range of further and higher education qualifications in the creative arts.

Result

At investment BIMM had 1,150 students in colleges in Brighton and Bristol teaching contemporary music. At exit the Group had over 8,200 students in 12 colleges across Europe – including London, Dublin, Birmingham, Manchester, Berlin and Hamburg – established through five strategic acquisitions and five new campus roll-outs. It moved into the broader creative arts sector and consolidated its position as Europe’s leading provider of creative arts education.

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10 new locations in the UK and Europe

This was an incredible journey with Sovereign. With their investment and strategic support, we have been able to achieve more than we had ever envisaged.

Adam Carswell / CEO / BIMM Institute

NURSEPLUS

Strategy

To support the business's request for a solution to founder succession and further professionalise through newly established roles.

Result

Utilising Sovereign's extensive network, a new CEO, CFO and Chairman were identified and successfully appointed. As operational improvements were made to the business, further senior managers joined to establish key functions including: Head of Recruitment, creating the centralised recruitment support function; Head of Nursing, to drive that service line; and an additional Regional Operations Director to support the roll-out of Nurseplus' branch network into the North of England.

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45%+ increase in number of branches

I was very proud to have grown Nurseplus for nearly 20 years, to be at the forefront of its sector. When Sovereign invested, I tasked them with further professionalising the business, and enhancing the Executive Team was fundamental to that – they delivered.

Heath Blake / Founder & NED / Nurseplus