The deal

Acting as the lead adviser, our Corporate Finance team successfully advised the shareholders on the sale of Abritas Limited, to Civica UK Limited, the wholly owned subsidiary of The Civica Group, a market leader in business-critical software applications, digital solutions and outsourcing services.

Based in Reading, Abritas was founded in 2000 by joint owners Stephen Oliver and Richard Percival and provides web-based application software and related services for the UK social housing sector. Its software-as-a-service solutions are used by local authorities and housing associations to provide social housing needs, options and lettings services for tenants, including an online mutual exchange tool to help tenants swap homes (www.swapandmove.co.uk).

The team ran a full marketing process and the business attracted interest from global trade buyers before agreeing to sell to The Civica Group. The Group has a successful track record of acquiring and integrating businesses with complementary skills and technology. The acquisition brings specialist capability which the Group does not currently offer, which strengthens its capability to support improved and more efficient tenant services and help address homelessness.

Legal advice was provided to the shareholders by Richard Clark at Clark Holt.

“We are extremely pleased with the outcome and believe Civica Group are the perfect home for Abritas. Our sincere thanks go to Clive, Iain and Richard for all their hard work. They did an absolutely outstanding job and the amount of effort and the quality of the work produced has been remarkable. We definitely made the right decision in choosing them to help us through this process.” Stephen Oliver, Co-Founder of Abritas.