EnServe Group Limited (formerly Spice Limited) is a support services company headquartered in

Macclesfield Macclesfield is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Bollin in the east of the county, on the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

which provides

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

services to the

utility As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosopher ...

sector. Formerly listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

and a constituent of the

FTSE 250 Index The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septemb ...

, it was wholly owned by the private equity company Cinven between 2010 and 2016, when it was bought by Rubicon.

History

The Company was founded by Simon Rigby in 1996 as a

management buy out A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or High-net-worth individual, individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout b ...

from

Yorkshire Electricity Yorkshire Electricity was an electricity distribution utility in England, serving much of Yorkshire and parts of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. History Formed as the Yorkshire Electricity Board in 1948 as part of the nationalisat ...

initially trading as ''Freedom Maintenance''. It was first listed on the

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...

in 2004. In 2006 it bought ''Inenco''Energy firm aims to be world leader
/ref> and ''ParGas'' and ''Apollo Heating'', in 2007 it purchased ''Gas Heating UK'' and in 2008 it acquired ''Saturn Energy'', ''Energy 2000'', '' British Power International'' and the ''National Industrial Fuel Efficiency Service''.Spice buys energy efficiency consultant
/ref> The Company transferred to the main list of the

in 2008. Spice plc was unlisted in December 2010 after a buyout by European investment group Cinven and renamed as Spice ltd. In September 2011 Spice Limited was renamed EnServe Group Limited. Rubicon purchased Enserve Group from Cinven in December 2015 installing a new management team under Mark Perkins (ex Shepherd Group) who very quickly carried out a full Group restructure, establishing each business on a viable standalone basis, and creating development strategies for each. The successful divestment then began with Metro Rod to Franchise Brands PLC in a reverse takeover of the AIM listed business run by Stephen Helmsley in March 2017, followed by Meter-U to M Group Services, run by Jim Arnold in June 2017 and finally Freedom Group itself in April 2018 following a year of profitable growth and development, to NG Bailey Group run by David Hurcomb. This marked the end of PE ownership for each of the businesses and the successful execution of the Rubicon strategy to re-home each business with long term strategic owners. The Analytics business Evolve was retained by Rubicon partners until it was acquired by Gentrack as part of their growth strategy.

Operations

The Company has the following divisions: *Electricity *Water *Analytics

References

External links

Official site

British Power International Official site

Freedom Group Official site

H2O Water Services Official site

Meter-U Official site

Metro Rod Official site

Evolve Analytics Official site
{{Energy in the United Kingdom, companies Companies based in Cheshire Companies established in 1996