Westchester client Centric Networks Ltd acquired by Maxima Holdings plc -- Premier Managed Service provider for infrastructure software

LONDON - July 20, 2007: Westchester Associates Limited (www.westchester.co.uk) today announced that it acted as M&A advisor to Centric Networks Limited ("Centric") in its sale to Maxima Holdings plc ("Maxima"). Total consideration of £6.4m is being paid by Maxima, the acquisitive IT solutions and managed services company, for Centric under the terms of this transaction.

Founded in 2003 by Managing Director Fraser Fisher, Centric provides 24x7 managed infrastructure, datacentre and security services to a broad range of clients in the mid-market. Centric has experienced compound annual growth rate of both revenue and profit before tax of approximately 100% over the last 2 years, and for the year ending 30 June 2006, the Company had revenues of £2 million and profit before tax of £0.55 million.

Commenting on Westchester's valuable contribution to sale process, Centric MD Fraser Fisher stated, "not only did Westchester keep it simple, clean and easy to understand, just as they defined even before they were appointed as our advisors, but they guided and coached us most effectively along the route. Importantly their excellent management of the process meant that it had minimal impact on our day to day business. Very quickly after starting the project they took us to market. They arranged meetings with the management teams of selected potential buyers who fitted the criteria of our brief and then brought each situation to a conclusion very effectively. Throughout the sale process, they were very responsive and always available whenever required."

Centric's expertise is in operating systems, networking, security and remote access. These skills are packaged into a managed service in accordance with ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) guidelines. The service generally embraces remote monitoring, for which a range of tools have been developed, and provision of helpdesk services. Centric frequently manages the hosting and maintenance of client's systems in third party datacentres. Centric is a Cisco Premier partner (network equipment), a Citrix Gold partner (remote access software), a Checkpoint Silver partner (security software) and a Microsoft certified partner (infrastructure software).

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