Livingstone shows twenty twenty vision in Dataforce deal

Livingstone advised the board of AIM-listed Twenty plc on its sale of non-core subsidiary Dataforce Interact Ltd to HOV Global Services for £9.25 million. Dataforce comprises the contact centre, BPO and fulfilment activities within Twenty. The deal forms part of Twenty’s strategy to focus solely on the data and digital marketing side of its business.

Livingstone previously advised the individual shareholders of Dataforce on the sale of the company to Twenty in 2006, and were called in by the Board after they decided to divest the operation.

“Having dealt with Livingstone when they were advising the vendors on the original Dataforce deal, we knew they were the right advisers to help us pursue our strategy”, says Ian Lancaster, Chief Executive of Twenty plc. “Livingstone’s knowledge of the contact centre space and their cross border expertise meant that they were able to facilitate a swift and attractive sale to HOV, whose headquarters are in Chennai.”

“This deal has been encouraging, not just because we have been able to sell an attractive and profitable business, enabling Twenty to focus on its core data and digital marketing businesses, but because we were able to achieve a good price”, says Tim Lyle, Partner at Livingstone. “We received a number of interesting offers for Dataforce mainly from overseas potential purchasers and were able to close the deal quickly – from being appointed in November 2009 to agreeing heads of terms in March of this year, and signing agreements in April” adds Alex John, Deal Leader.

The announcement of the deal was received positively by the stockmarket with Twenty’s share price increasing 140% on the day.