NVM Private Equity takes majority stake in Inprova Group

NVM Private Equity backed the management buyout of Inprova in November 2022, led by group chief executive Steve Malone, who had joined the company in 2008 and taken that role in 2020. Shawbrook Bank provided the senior debt facilities. It was NVM’s third new investment of the year, after Easby Group in March and YorkTest in July. Based in Warrington, Cheshire, Inprova buys on behalf of its clients. Rather than each housing association negotiating separately with suppliers, it aggregates their requirements into buying groups, tenders the resulting volume, and puts in place framework contracts its members then order against. It runs several of the largest such groups in Britain, including Procurement for Housing, Buy4London and Independent Healthcare Procurement, channelling more than 400 million pounds of its clients’ annual spend. Around that it supplies the technology through which orders are placed and recorded, and the analytics that show where money goes and how suppliers perform. Its clients are public sector, private and charitable organisations, predominantly in social housing, a market accounting for some 23 billion pounds of annual procurement within a public sector total of around 200 billion. Scale is what makes the model work: the volume Inprova commits gives it terms no individual member could obtain, and makes it a route to market suppliers want to be on. NVM invested to fund development of the technology platform and the analytics around it, in categories where its clients spend most and where obligations have tightened: construction and capital works, responsive and planned maintenance, building safety and the move towards net zero carbon. NVM was advised by Signature Corporate Finance, with DWF as legal counsel, Cortus Transaction Services on financial due diligence, Graph Strategy on commercial, Fluid IT on technical, GK Strategy on political, Continuum on management, Sooner Advisory on debt, Vista on insurance and PwC on tax structuring. Management was advised by Beyond Corporate and Claritas Tax, while DSW and Pannone Corporate advised the vendors.

Previously, Inprova Group had completed the acquisition of Valueworks in 2017 as part of its consolidation strategy.