YFM Equity Partners invests £4.5m to support the continued growth of CPMS Ltd

YFM Equity Partners (YFM), the specialist private equity fund manager, has invested £4.5m from its managed funds into Collaborative Project Management Services (CPMS) to support the continued growth of the business through ongoing new product and market development.  YFM’s investment is the seventh investment from its £46m buyout fund.

CPMS provides multidiscipline Project Management to the railway system across track, signalling, telecoms, civils, and overhead lines.  CPMS has built a very strong reputation for excellence and is one of only seven companies to be awarded top marks under Network Rail’s Performance Supplier feedback process.  CPMS has grown quickly due it’s to reputation for efficient delivery and impressive levels of service.  Current annual revenues are almost £10m and the company employs 60 highly qualified members of staff.

The business was founded in 2012 by Matthew Baine, Damien Gent, Chris Mackie and Tim Galvini who will all remain with the company following the YFM investment and will continue to be the largest shareholders.  The team will be joined by Andrew Smith as Non-Executive Chairman, Andrew spent his executive career in large scale Infrastructure and Transport roles and has since become a serially successful Chairman.

Jamie Roberts, Partner at YFM, said: “Rail infrastructure is critical to the UK economy and CPMS is at the forefront of delivering the ongoing significant investment needed to keep up with demand.   The CPMS team has done a great job in building the business and we were very impressed with the reputation they have for delivering complex projects on time and under budget.  We look forward to working with the team as they move to the next stage of the company’s development”.

“This is the seventh investment from YFM’s 2016 buyout fund, which closed in April 2017, and represents another strong example of investing in well-established regional businesses in the £2-10 million investment market.”

Matthew Baine, MD and founder at CPMS, added: “We believe that our success is down to hard work, an honest and transparent ethos and the delivery of well thought out client solutions.  We met various private equity investors as part of this process and we felt YFM offered the right skill set to help deliver our growth objectives as well as sharing a similar culture.  We are looking forward to working with Andrew Smith and YFM to continue our growth story.”