Adista

Adista is a provider of telecom, internet and IT managed services in France.

Founded in 1981, Adista provides turnkey telecommunication and IT solutions such as high-speed fibre internet and fully managed remote IT platforms to SMEs in France.

Having made significant gains in market share, Adista has more than 4,000 public sector and SME customers and its high-quality service is supported by over 700 employees, including a technical sales team, across its network of 35 agencies and seven data centres.

VALUE CREATION

Since investment, Equistone has worked in partnership with the management team to support initiatives that have generated organic and external growth and resulted in Adista’s revenue more than doubling from €73m to €165m budgeted 2021.

Operationally, Equistone was instrumental in succession plans to facilitate the two founders intention to retire, as well as the revitalisation of senior management roles through the recruitment of a CEO, COO, CCO, CTO, CFO, HR and legal directors. Significant improvements were also achieved to financial reporting processes and governance.

With Equistone’s support, Adista successfully completed two add-on acquisitions of complementary businesses during the investment period:

• Fingerprint Technologies, a local telecom operator, completed in July 2020. 
• Waycom, a B2B IT & telecom service provider, completed in March 2021. 

Adista has expanded into IT outsourcing and cloud services, which have gained strong traction and developed into core segments for the group.

THE EXIT

Equistone sold its Fund V equity stake in Adista to Keensight Capital.