Pictured: Sam Ferguson, CEO of EDM Group

Two of the UK's most experienced information management providers, Sala International and EDM Group, have completed a merger agreement worth £52 million to create one of the UK's largest providers of outsourced information management services.

The business, which will operate as EDM Group, will provide one of the industry's most comprehensive and advanced offerings, combining market-leading services in digital mailroom, print room, document digitisation, records management, online document hosting and SaaS solutions for business process management. 

The merger, which enables ECI Partners to exit its original investment in EDM Group, has been backed by private equity house LDC, which has provided a substantial injection of capital alongside support provided by Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Acquisition Finance.

Collectively, the Group will continue to focus on expanding its services in the core sectors of financial services, business services and healthcare, where its customers include Avis Europe, Nationwide Building Society, Companies House, Legal & General, Grant Thornton and numerous healthcare providers including many NHS Trusts, Bupa and BMI hospitals.

With its enhanced offering, EDM Group will focus on helping organisations reduce customer service costs and meet their compliance requirements, using its expertise in workflow, outsourcing and paperless technology to enable more effective use, creation and storage of documents. 

It will now have the capacity to digitize 500 million documents per year, either hosting them securely online or physically storing them within the company's secure records management facilities, which have 500 thousand square feet of storage and 50 miles of live file storage. 

Sam Ferguson will take the role of CEO. Mark Jones will be the EDM Group CFO, with Tomas Gronager, Sala International CEO taking up the role of COO.

Yann Souillard and Alex Clark of LDC will join the board as non-executive directors. 

Speaking about the merger, Sam Ferguson, CEO of EDM Group, says: 

"It's great to see two high growth and ambitious information management companies join forces to leverage each other's key strengths, in turn providing a unique proposition that is of benefit to our new combined customer base. The merger is the latest development in the ongoing growth and evolution of the company and we will continue to invest in facilities, technology and staff to build our business expertise, innovative technology and robust outsourcing capabilities."

Yann Souillard, Managing Director of LDC, said: 

"As a result of the merger, EDM Group can now offer its customers a far more enhanced and enlarged proposition, encompassing the full spectrum of outsourced information management services underpinned by market-leading technology and processes. As companies come under increasing pressure to achieve cost efficiency and regulatory compliance, the group has an enormous opportunity to accelerate its growth and capture a larger market share."    

John Hayhurst, Director of ECI Partners, commented:

"It has been a pleasure to work with Sam (who we brought him into EDM in 2006) and Mark (who helped put the original deals together). During the course of Sam's stewardship EDM substantially increased staff numbers and also, with investment from ECI, significantly developed EDM's technology based workflow solutions. The historical development of EDM with ECI's support and its current merger with Sala with support from LDC is a striking example of private equity as a driving force for good in the UK economy. We wish Sam, Mark and all the team the best of luck for the future."