Livingbridge Successfully Exits TSA Management in Australia

Livingbridge, a leading mid-market private equity investor with offices in the UK, Australia and US, has agreed the sale of their stake in TSA Management (TSA), an independent provider of client-side project management and advisory services across Australia and New Zealand, to Quadrant Private Equity. The investment was made from Livingbridge 6.

Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Sydney, TSA manages, consults and partners with forward-thinking government and private sector clients to bring impactful capital projects to life. They work across a range of infrastructure and social infrastructure sectors, including road, rail, healthcare, and education.

Livingbridge invested in TSA in 2017, having identified the potential to support the management team to consolidate a large and fragmented market with structural tailwinds. Since then, TSA has experienced consistent organic growth. This has been supported by a strategic M&A programme, which has seen TSA expand its footprint across Australia and into New Zealand through partnership with five likeminded organisations. The firm now provides services to over 250 clients across ten offices.

Development of TSA’s operational capabilities was a key theme during Livingbridge’s investment. This included a material investment in technology; the processes needed to build a scalable platform; several additions to the management team and an extension of TSA’s service offering.

With TSA’s staff central to the success of the business, Livingbridge invested heavily in support of TSA’s People & Culture team. This has supported the delivery of several wellbeing and development initiatives to ensure TSA continues to be recognised as an employer of choice. In addition, TSA has hired in-house talent acquisition resource to ensure TSA can continue to attract and retain the best employees as the business grows.

Oliver Mauldridge at Livingbridge, said: “We are immensely proud of our partnership with TSA. During our involvement TSA has continued to build on its track record of success, more than doubling in size and becoming the employer of choice in the sector. We wish the TSA team and Quadrant every success in the future.”

Gareth Young at Livingbridge added: “We would like to thank the TSA team for choosing to partner with us. This represents a fantastic start for Livingbridge in Australia and New Zealand. We look forward to many more in the future as we help ambitious companies achieve their growth aspirations.”

Andrew Wilson, CEO of TSA Management, said: “It has been a pleasure to partner with Livingbridge over the past three years. The firm’s expert guidance and financial support have been instrumental in helping us fulfil our potential. The Livingbridge team delivered on all the promises they made pre-deal. They invested the energy to understand what makes TSA special and supported investments in initiatives that have helped us go from strength-to-strength.
We now look forward to our new partnership with Quadrant. We are excited that we are well positioned to continue to grow our range of services and geographic reach. Combined, this will allow us to provide the best outcomes for our clients and career opportunities for our people.”

The principal advisors on this exit for Livingbridge included Rothschild (M&A), Minter Ellison (legal), PwC (financial & tax) & LEK (commercial).