Xyratex’s existing management and employees, aided by HgCapital which provided the bulk of the funding, have bought out the founders and ex-employees seeking an exit. A venture capitalist firm, Aberdeen Murray Johnstone, has also sold its stake.

Speaking to ComputerWire, CEO Steve Barber confirmed that HgCapital has become a significant minority stakeholder, with the rest of the company being owned by management and employees. Exact details of the deal were not revealed. HgCapital is a provider of finance to the private equity market. It has funds under management of $1.13 billion (E1.1 billion), dedicated for investment in private companies, and has more than 200 institutional clients.

The buy-out provides those concerned with a shareholder realization opportunity and will allow the management team to focus on the company going forward. Barber confirmed that he would monitor market conditions for a possible IPO, but suggested that the New Year would be the earliest time he would consider opting for this route.

Xyratex is a profitable company and its revenues have been growing at 40% over the past couple of years. The US is its principle market and last year it posted revenue of $250 million. Its two main revenue streams come from selling storage systems to major storage vendors, which then brand the product with their own logo, and from providing the technology used to write the tracks on to hard-disks. This equipment is used by major hard-disk manufacturers including Seagate and Western Digital.

The UK-based company employs more than 700 people around the world, 400 of who work in the UK. In the US it has operations in Chicago (testing), Sacramento (manufacturing), and San Jose (development). Its European offices are both in the UK (Havant and Manchester) where most of its R&D work is carried out. In Asia, it has a manufacturing plant in Seremban, Malaysia, and one in Singapore.

The Havant, Hampshire headquarters of Xyratex was once one of IBM’s biggest disk drive manufacturing plants, with Xyratex’s founders staging a management buy-out from IBM back in 1994.

This article was based on material originally published by ComputerWire