With a turnover of £10 million and clients including ASDA and the British Museum, Nationwide Window Cleaning (NWC) now plans to pursue further growth using equity investment.
The bank-backed Business Growth Fund (BGF) has stepped in as an investor and will support plans to expand NWC’s fleet, staff count and ambition to grow fivefold in seven years.
NWC was founded by current managing director Thornton Tasker in 2009 and now has 200 staff providing what it describes as ‘complex and simple’ cleaning services for the likes of universities and retailers.
As part of the transaction, a new non-executive chairman has been appointed in the form of Stuart Lees. As managing director at Altium Capital and former CEO of windows manufacturer and retailer Latium Group, Lees will be joining fellow new board member Neil Inskip, senior investment manager for BGF, at NWC.
Tasker comments, ‘This is the right time to expand. Demand for our range of national specialist services continues to gain momentum and we are in a strong position to grow this part of the business.
‘We are delighted to be partnering with BGF. In addition to the investment, we value the insight and experience of its investment team as well as our newly appointed chairman, Stuart Lees.’
The BGF, which manages a fund of £2.5 billion, has now made 63 growth capital investments since setting up in 2011 – with NWC becoming the 12th deal closed involving a business headquartered in the north of England.
Recent investments have seen the BGF complete a maiden listed company investment involving carpet business Victoria, as well as adding Molecular Products Group and Ecovision to its portfolio.
‘We’ve tracked NWC over the past two years and are impressed by its progress and development under the leadership of Thornton Tasker,’ Inskip says.
‘There is an extremely strong management team in place, with a clear business strategy and sound operating model. In a relatively short amount of time, NWC has become an industry leader in a market with significant opportunities, making the business well placed to build on the number of existing contracts it manages.’
