The business

Tekton was acquired in December 2006 for £12 million which included the simultaneous complementary acquisition of SiteStream Software Ltd, a software supplier to house building companies based in Surrey and Missouri.

Based in Manchester, Tekton Group is an Enterprise Resourcing Planning (ERP) software provider to the UK construction industry. Its products are used by customers such as Carillion, Skanska and Eric Wright Group as integrated accounting, resource application and planning tools that are particular to this industry.

Under our ownership, the company led by CEO, Richard Beaton, invested heavily in its infrastructure, consolidated its operations and expanded its sales force. The business saw its profits increase by 20% whilst employee numbers grew by over 16% to 95. In addition, in December 2007 the company acquired Wilcomp, a business and accounting software integrator based in New York, which achieved the objective of expanding the company’s footprint within the US.

Tekton was Inflexion’s fifth IT/technology-focused investment in recent years.

The investment

Inflexion sold its entire stake in Tekton in a trade sale to Sage (UK) Ltd for £21 million. In 15 months Inflexion has made an IRR of 65% comprising a 2x return on its original investment of £4.6 million.

Both the initial acquisition and the subsequent sale were led by Tim Smallbone and Catherine Richards.