Twin brothers Andy and Chris McLaughlin have kept it in the family by buying MIS Group from their father Stewart McLaughlin.
The Cheshire-based group, which has a turnover of 拢9.2m and employs 92 staff, includes housing management software vendor MIS-AMS and MIS Emergency Systems, one of the UK鈥檚 primary suppliers of ambulance command control systems.
The MBO was completed聽by means of a four-year deferred consideration for a near eight-figure sum.
Andy McLaughlin, group finance director of 聽MIS Group, said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 very much business as usual 鈥� I joined the group 18 months ago as FD and Chris has been managing director of MIS-AMS for the past five years where he has grown revenues 47 per cent in that time,聽putting聽processes in place for growth and聽expanding the workforce by聽60 per cent.
鈥淭here will be no change to the group structure – we are in excellent shape with plans for further growth to over 100 employees before the year is out and future expansion plans entailing investment into the local area and more jobs in the coming year.鈥�
Before joining the family-run firm Andy held senior roles at Capita and Canon while his brother began at PwC as a project manager managing IT projects and setting up a global application.
The 37-year-old brothers have launched a third company called Incline-IT. The IT managed service business will complement MIS-AMS鈥檚 ActiveH housing management software (HMS) which is purchased primarily by UK housing authorities to manage their tenants and estates.
Chris McLaughlin, managing director of MIS-AMS, said: 鈥淢any of MIS-AMS鈥檚 housing association customers tell us that they鈥檙e increasingly looking for ways to outsource the hosting of their HMS to become more efficient and reduce costs.
鈥淢IS-AMS manages many of the UK鈥檚 housing associations鈥� core software product – ActiveH, so it鈥檚 a natural step for Incline-IT to manage their IT estates more widely. It will provide a way to remove the cost and headache of hosting systems for many of our existing customers and it makes sense to bring it to life now.鈥�
The existing businesses have grown since their launch by Stewart McLaughlin in聽1981聽to the point where they are both market leaders in ambulance command and control systems (MIS Emergency Systems) and the housing systems market (MIS-AMS).
He retired from the daily workings of the business in April 2019 but remains in his role as chairman.