Milbank has advised PeopleCert International Limited on the M&A and debt financing aspects of its agreement to acquire AXELOS, a joint venture company created to manage, develop and grow the portfolio of global best practice methodologies in project, programme and portfolio management, and IT and digitally enabled services. As part of the acquisition of AXELOS, Milbank also advised PeopleCert International in connection with a minority investment in PeopleCert by FTV Capital. Based in the US, FTV Capital is a sector-focused growth equity investment firm and has been partnering with successful and motivated management teams to accelerate transformative growth since 1998.
PeopleCert is a global leader in Project Management and IT qualifications. This acquisition represents a major milestone for PeopleCert and is fully aligned with its strategy to accelerate growth and further establish its leadership position in the professional skills and languages certification markets.
AXELOS is a joint venture company created in 2013 by the Cabinet Office on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) in the United Kingdom and Capita plc (CPI.L), to manage, develop and grow the portfolio of global best practice methodologies in project, programme and portfolio management, and IT and digitally enabled services, including PRINCE2® and ITIL®.
The London-based Milbank team was led by Leveraged Finance/Capital Markets partner Apostolos Gkoutzinis and Corporate partners Andrej Wolf and Mark Stamp, with support from partner Miko Bradford and associates Dimos Papanikolao, Lefteris Dafermos, Tom Neilson, Chris Smith and James Szauer (London Leveraged Finance/Capital Markets); and associates Katherine Soanes, Helen Sutcliffe, James Mackay, Daniel Woods and trainee Tom Rhys-Jones (London Corporate). The team also included London Tax partner Russell Jacobs and Tax associate Cosmos Fung, London Technology partner Joel Harrison, Technology special counsel Alison Beal and associate Prue Buckland and Munich Antitrust partner Alexander Rinne and Antitrust associates Nils Bremer and Alexander Zyrewitz.
