Pell & Bales has been acquired by Panther Group

Pell & Bales, one the UK's leading not-for-profit specialist marketing services companies, has secured buy-out and development funding to create a pre-eminent professional services firm offering charities, public and not-for-profit clients a wide range of telephone and data services including customer relationship-management consulting, data management, as well as both outbound and inbound telemarketing.

Funding has been supplied by Iceni Capital, a specialist investor in fast growing business services firms, in conjunction with a debt facility from The Royal Bank of Scotland . The buy-out, led by Pell & Bales's CEO (Karl Holweger) with support from the senior management team, allows the founder to retire from the company and gives the management team the capital resources to further develop the business.

Pell & Bales is a provider of outsourced fundraising and consulting services to the not-for-profit, charity and membership sector, and pioneered the use of targeted telemarketing for fundraising and campaigning in the UK. P&B has long standing partnerships with some of the UK's leading not-for-profit organisations and charities including Cancer Research UK, the NSPCC and WWF.

The buy-out will allow Pell & Bales to invest in developing and implementing enhanced new data management products and services that meet the specific needs of their client community. It will also allow the company to further expand its operations and to set up new sites to meet the growing demand for its services.

With headquarters in London, Pell & Bales operates from four sites in UK, including its most recent facility which opened this month in Kingston-upon-Thames.

Karl Holweger says: “Our clients are increasingly looking for ways in which they can achieve superior returns on their marketing investment. The buy-out will ensure that we have the resources and expertise necessary to develop further our data-centric product and service offering.”

Christopher Samler, Partner at Iceni Capital, comments: “Pell & Bales is an excellent company at the heart of the not-for-profit sector and we are delighted to be backing Karl and his team.”

This is Arrowpoint Advisory's second deal in this sector in March following on from the successful sale of Awareness Group to Centaur Media.

Contact the deal team