CSL is a supplier of critical connectivity internet of things solutions, so we can connect anything anywhere, but in the main, we connect things that typically, although not always, get a blue light response, so I think police, ambulance, fire. At ECI we have significant experience in investing in the internet of things market. We have backed Wireless Logic, we backed Peoplesafe, we backed Arkessa, all of which have delivered fantastic returns to our investors averaging over three times money. ECI first invested in CSL in summer 2020 in lockdown. We’ve known Ed for a long time, we’ve probably known him for almost a decade before backing him at CSL. And then we’ve helped him augment his management team to bring in a new CTO, a new CCO, and many senior hires beneath that to deliver his 20% consistent growth over the last few years. ECI have, I’d say in my experience, done two main things. So one is M&A support. Our origination team’s been looking at the IT market for a couple of decades now and we built a series of maps looking at the global ecosystem for businesses of this type, and so they worked with the CSL team to really refine those lists and build those lists based on a CSL strategy and where they can acquire capability or enter new markets by M&A. M&A has been really valuable to CSL’s growth. Specifically it’s allowed CSL to consolidate its position in the IaC fire and security vertical. It’s also allowed CSL to enter meaningfully other verticals, and finally it’s allowed CSL to enter new geographies. Iberia and Benelux were through businesses that we acquired. We had one large acquisition in the last cycle for a company called Caburn, and ECI were fundamental to analysing that entity but also structuring the deal and negotiating the outcome of that deal, which is fantastic. And then secondly they supported us in the scoping and development of a data cube, which was key to the transaction that we recently did for a continuity vehicle. Historically the business has been focused on building in security. We’ve built an IoT team now that’s looking at the likes of infrastructure, utilities and then more latterly a public sector. I think in terms of acquisitions, either going to be for scale, for geography or for products. And our commercial team has really helped the team think about that strategy and think about what products and what verticals and what geographies would be impactful to set ourselves on a growth journey, and then helped them ultimately integrate those acquisitions after they’ve been completed. And so we’ve now been approved as a cyber security vendor. We’ve just won an Amazon contract and are now looking at rolling out the AS solution globally as a result of that. Working with CSL’s been really collaborative and good fun as well. It’s never a straight road, you know, for the last five years we’ve had a global pandemic. It’s fair to say that wasn’t in our original investment case. In the last five years with ECI we have outperformed our MTP, so CSL has grown typically around about 20% in terms of EBITDA year on year. We’ve grown from I think 15 million EBITDA to, at the end of this year, 43 million EBITDA, which is good growth. We’re a rule of 40 or rule of 60 business as a result of that. We’ve also expanded our sectors that we’re in. CSL’s developed a patented global resilient SIM, which it’s able to sell into its partners at huge scale, and so that’s a really exciting opportunity. We’ve got about 50,000 SIMs deployed now and the product is really rolling out well. I’ve worked with a few PE companies in the past and I find ECI to be among the best of them. Working with ECI has been a pleasure, I’ve really enjoyed it, they’re good guys. They challenge us, they expect us to grow, it’s a good working relationship. We sold our stake into a CV in October 2025, delivering a three and a half times money multiple. We wanted to partner with CSL for another investment cycle for many reasons. It’s a scarce asset in a fantastic growing market. It’s got a great management team who have proved themselves through the last couple of cycles, and importantly it’s a plan which is broadly more of the same with some exciting upside, and that’s what we look for across all of our investments. This balance of lower risk and higher potential returns. We’re confident that the second Old Pier will be just as successful. We’re targeting a hundred plus in EBITDA, and I think we stand a better chance of getting there with them supporting us than with someone else.
