London equity specialist gives comms firm something to shout about with £90m acquisition

A London private equity specialist has announced its acquisition of a communications firm in a £90m deal.

Graphite Capital has confirmed that it has acquired Babble, a unified communications, cloud contact centre and cyber security provider, from previous owner LDC.

Babble supports around 2,000 medium-sized companies operating in a wide range of sectors including financial, health and education, travel and accommodation, and public services.

The company has grown revenues to more than £25m over the past three years, and has a pipeline of potential acquisition which will expand its services.

Babble is the fifth investment from Graphite’s £500m fund Graphite Capital Partners IX.

LDC will retain a minority stake in Babble and the management team is reinvesting a “substantial” proportion of its proceeds.

Matt Parker, Babble’s chief executive, commented: “We have known Graphite for many years and will benefit from their proven expertise in supporting the growth of technology-led companies, both organically and through acquisition.”

Humphrey Baker, Graphite partner, said: “We were impressed by Babble’s talented management team and its proven growth strategy, continually building on its strong recurring revenue base.

“Babble is a leading player in a very large and attractive market, working closely with its customers and enabling them to move to cloud-based ‘UCaaS’, ‘CCaaS’ and cyber solutions.

“We look forward to working with Matt and the team to take Babble to the next level.”

Lara Markham and Tony Saade, investment directors, May Sulaiman, investment manager, and Zoe Jackson, investment executive, also worked on the transaction.

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