Transaction accelerates Trustmarque’s strategic focus on optimisation and cloud services, bringing the management of the whole software lifecycle to its customers.

York, 02 February, 2023:

Trustmarque, a leading provider of IT solutions and services backed by One Equity Partners (“OEP”), today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Livingstone a leading independent, global provider of software and cloud asset management and optimisation services, from sellers including Carlyle Europe Technology Partners (“CETP”).

Livingstone is trusted by some of the world’s largest companies and public sector organisations to control and optimise their investments in software and cloud services. With approximately 150 experts and its sophisticated digital intelligence platform, Livingstone is uniquely positioned as the only independent Software Asset Management (“SAM”) vendor in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

For Trustmarque, this transaction is the first step in an ambitious growth strategy to accelerate the consolidation of mid-market IT services in the UK. The partnership with Livingstone complements and strengthens Trustmarque’s existing capabilities in SAM, cloud and licensing, offering superior returns on technology investment for its blue-chip customer base.

“Today marks an exciting milestone, as we welcome the Livingstone team to Trustmarque,” said Ben Richardson, CEO of Trustmarque. “This acquisition will enable us to leverage the data-driven knowledge of Livingstone to benefit Trustmarque’s customers. Together, we are ready to collaborate to deliver superior transparency and control over our customers’ IT investments.”

 

Similarly, as a top-tier partner for leading technology partners including Microsoft and Cisco, Trustmarque has unrivalled capability and credibility to deliver their most advanced Cloud, Security and Connectivity solutions to Livingstone’s customers.

“Everyone at Livingstone is excited to join the growing Trustmarque family,” added Chris Allan, CEO of Livingstone. “Our combined expertise will create unrivalled end-to-end services across the software lifecycle for our customers. In Trustmarque, we recognised a partner with the same vision as ours: a commitment to ensuring our customers buy what they need, secure their environment, and renew it optimally. We look forward to working together to help all our customers harness the power of technology through smart IT investments.”

Trustmarque Chairman, Torgrim Takle, commented that “today we embark on an extraordinary growth opportunity, becoming stronger and more adaptable through all the synergies with Livingstone. I’m confident that our strengthened combined capabilities will further support the cloud and digitalisation agenda of our key technology partners, particularly Microsoft and Cisco, while delivering an enhanced value proposition to all our collective customers.”

The Livingstone senior management team and colleagues will remain with the business following the transaction, and customers should continue to communicate with their existing contacts.

Houlihan Lokey acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Livingstone.