Guardian Computer Services Ltd, the disaster and business recovery subsidiary of ICL Plc, is leaving the nest in a management buyout led and financed by ECI Ventures, the independent UK venture capital group, with Banque Paribas putting up some of the cash. Although the price paid for the company has not been disclosed Sherwood Computer Services Plc, a London-based financial and insurance software and services company, sold its 25% stake in Guardian to ICL last year for ú300,000, valuing the company at ú1.2m at the time – and the valuation is not likely to have increased very much. The decision to become independent from ICL was prompted by a demand for disaster recovery services on non-ICL hardware. The company already has Data General Corp, Sequent Computer Systems Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc and Pyramid Technology Corp machines and offers support software for IBM Corp, Digital Equipment Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Prime Computer Inc and Xerox Corp machines. It has 35 employees and will retain its existing name and premises. Turnover for 1994 is estimated at $9m and Guardian says the move will accelerate development of its services across Europe will bring in further revenue from consultancy.
