Barings, one of the world’s leading financial services firms, today announced that it has provided a senior secured credit facility to support ECI Partners in its acquisition of CSL. Headquartered in the UK, CSL is an international critical communications service provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“We are delighted to support ECI’s investment in CSL, further strengthening our two firms’ relationship. This marks our second transaction together, following Barings support of ECI’s acquisition of Moneypenny,” added Matt Carty, Director in Barings’ European Private Finance group. “In the current market environment we are focused on investing in resilient businesses backed by sponsors with strong sector experience, as CSL demonstrates with the backing of experienced IoT investor, ECI.”

“It has been a pleasure to work with Barings again,” said Paul McCreadie, Partner at ECI. “They demonstrated a strong grasp of CSL’s business model and delivered a financing package that supports our strategy to expand the group internationally and enhance the product offering to CSL’s customer base.”

CSL are market leaders in providing M2M and IoT connectivity solutions in the Fire, Security and Telehealth sectors. They have a focus on customers in the Fire & Security end-market, in which they have invested significantly over the years to ensure a managed service offering for reliable alarm signaling for domestic, commercial, and retail premises. CSL services over 1 million M2M devices and monitors 4 billion events through its platforms each month across the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland.

About Barings
Barings is a $346+ billion* global financial services firm dedicated to meeting the evolving investment and capital needs of our clients and customers. Through active asset management and direct origination, we provide innovative solutions and access to differentiated opportunities across public and private capital markets. A subsidiary of MassMutual, Barings maintains a global presence across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Barings Global Private Finance is a 60+ investment team globally, with a 40-year track record of successfully financing middle-market buyouts, acquisitions, and recapitalizations. With product capabilities that range from traditional senior debt to bespoke junior capital securities, and hold sizes of £200 million+, Barings is focused on providing capital solutions that help our private equity clients complete their deal on time and as expected. Our long-term commitment to the asset class, local origination in each region, consistent team, and broad range of investment capabilities, are designed to provide investors an absolute spread premium to broadly syndicated loans as well as an attractive risk-adjusted return potential.

About ECI
ECI Partners invests in management buyouts and buyins for majority or minority equity investments in medium sized UK growth companies. For more than 40 years ECI Partners has been investing across a range of sectors, gaining a wealth of experience in supporting high growth businesses. The firm typically invests £25m to £100m of equity in deals valued up to £250m. ECI Partners believes in teamwork and collaboration, supporting ambitious management teams supporting their knowledge and vision with our experience. For more information, visit www.ecipartners.com.

*As of June 30, 2020