Clydesdale backs cleaning group in £12m acquisition

LPM Group, the contract cleaning and maintenance services specialist, has continued its expansion with the acquisition of Temple Security in a deal worth £12 million.

Clydesdale Bank provided a £7 million funding package to support the acquisition which, when combined with LPM’s existing Axis Security business, will make it a top 20 national security provider. Temple is the third acquisition in three years by LPM, which is backed by the private equity buy and build specialist Sovereign Capital.

Established in 1997, Temple is a national provider of manned guarding, remote monitoring, key holding and electronic security services.  The business covers the whole of the UK from its control centres in Hounslow in the south of England and Rotherham in the north, and its offices in Manchester, Birmingham, Dundee, Belfast, Sunderland and Dublin.  Temple has a turnover of £20m and employs over 800 guards.

LPM, which is based in Sidcup, Kent, started life in 1985 as London Property Maintenance, an office cleaning business, but soon began to expand into other services and regions. Sovereign backed the buy-in management buy-out of the business in 2006 and since then has supported two further acquisitions – that of Leeds-based Dependable Services in September 2007 and Manchester-based InterCity Group Limited in April 2008. 

In October last year, Clydesdale Bank provided a £12m package for LPM as part of a refinancing deal to replace the previous funding by Icelandic bank Kaupthing.

Alison Taylor, director with Clydesdale Bank Corporate and Structured Finance in London, said: “The acquisition of Temple represents an excellent opportunity for LPM to augment its existing security arm and provides a platform for it to sell add-on services such as electronic security. It is also a further step towards LPM’s target of becoming a £100m revenue group with a broad service offering.”