History of ECI
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ECI is proud of its history as one of the founding firms of the UK private equity industry in the late 1970’s.
The current team at ECI is determined to maintain ECI’s position at the forefront of the UK mid market. The timeline below charts some of the significant stages in ECI’s history and in the creation of a hard won reputation for success, straight dealing and value creation:
Timeline:
| 1976 | Established by the Bank of England to make investments in UK companies facing liquidity issues |
| 1981 | Ansafone: ECI's first MBO
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| 1983 | Founding member of the BVCA. Funded Albert Fisher, now a £700million turnover food distributor, with first acquisitions
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1984
| Tony Lorenz, ECI’s then managing partner, is the second chairman of the BVCA. Funded Williams Holdings, which reached £2.7billion turnover in 1999 with early acquisitions
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| 1986 | Shanks & McEwan: financed acquisition of Hanson waste division. Bloomsbury Publishing: start-up financing for the group which has gone on to become famous for the Harry Potter phenomenon.
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1986
| Raised ECI 3
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1988
| Shanks & McEwan floated
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1990
| Raised ECI 4 - exclusive focus on UK mid market buyouts from the start of ECI's fourth fund
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1991
| National Express: MBO of the UK’s largest scheduled coach operator
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1992
| National Express floated
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1994
| Raised ECI 5. Bloomsbury Publishing floated and buyout of Guardian IT from ICL plc
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1995
| Holiday Autos: Buyout of Europe’s No 1 holiday car rental operator and an MBI to the IT consultancy group, OSI
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| 1997 | Raised ECI 6 |
1999
| IPO of Guardian IT on the LSE and buyout of Hoseasons, one of UK’s leading holiday brands. OSI Group was acquired by Xansa PLC before its subsequent sale to Steria in 2007
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| 2000 | Raised ECI 7 |
2002
| Tragus: Buyout of Cafe Rouge and Bella Italia restaurant chains from Whitbread
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2003
| Hoseasons sold in a secondary buyout; Holiday Autos sold to lastminute.com and buyout of ClarityBlue
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2004
| Buyout of Think Money Group (formerly Gregory Pennington) and Laterooms
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2005
| Raised ECI 8. Tragus sold in a secondary buyout
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2006
| Sold ClarityBlue to Experian and Laterooms to First Choice Group
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2007
| Sold six businesses in a record year for realisations including Bounty, M&M direct and Think Money
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2008
| Raised ECI 9
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| 2009 | Sold Racal Acoustics to Esterline Technologies and awarded BVCA House of the Year |
Even among its peer group, ECI is well respected. They are sensible and have made some very sound investments without making a big song and dance about it"
Andy Vaughan, Chairman of ClarityBlue and Enviros