Exponent Private Equity takes majority stake in H&MV Engineering

Exponent agreed on 14 February 2022 to acquire a majority stake in H&MV Engineering, completing in March. It bought from private shareholders and management, with Novus Technical Services and the other non-management shareholders exiting in full, while chief executive P.J. Flanagan and chief operating officer John Stokes reinvested and remained significant shareholders alongside the rest of the team. H&MV designs, installs and maintains the high-voltage infrastructure through which electricity reaches a site: substations, switchgear and the connections to the transmission network, delivered turnkey from design through commissioning to maintenance. Its customers are data centre operators, renewable energy developers and electricity utilities, served from Ireland and the United Kingdom and across the Nordics, the Netherlands, Germany and South Africa, with a design hub in India. It generated revenue of €100–200M. The work sits on the critical path of its customers’ capital projects: a data centre cannot open, nor a wind farm export, until the grid connection is energised. High-voltage services are the narrowest segment of mechanical and electrical contracting, since the certification and the engineers required limit how many contractors can perform them, which is what distinguishes the business from general electrical installation. The company had grown steadily under successive owners. Novus Technical Services, an international oil and gas services group, had taken control through a management buyout in September 2018, after MML Growth Capital Partners Ireland had backed an earlier buyout in 2015 at which the founder exited. Between 2018 and 2022 it opened offices across Ireland, the United Kingdom and Europe, established the Indian design hub, won several large multinational contracts and doubled its workforce.