‘With Mobeus’s support we aspire to be one of the largest LSPs in the UK’

Mobeus has supported the management buyout of The Translation People as a platform investment to pursue a buy-and-build strategy in the growing but highly fragmented language services market.

The Translation People is a specialist Language Service Provider (LSP) delivering B2B translation services to global corporates and SMEs. Using a combination of proprietary and third-party technology and a network of international linguists, The Translation People provides business-critical translations for organisations across a range of sectors.

Mobeus was first introduced to The Translation People in 2018 and stayed close to the business as current MD Jasmin Schneider assumed the leadership from vendors Stephen Wilde and David Nichols. As part of this transaction Wilde and Nichols are stepping back from day-to-day involvement in the business but are supporting the buyout with a material investment and will retain a minority shareholding.

The Translation People has grown steadily over the last four years and has developed its German and French operations which make up over 40% of group turnover. The LSP market is highly fragmented with an estimated 27,000 LSPs globally. With ever-increasing language requirements due to the globalisation of business, the importance of high-quality LSPs is increasing.

Having made one successful acquisition prior to Mobeus’s involvement, the strategy for the business is to grow through buy and build and Mobeus already has the first acquisition for The Translation People in diligence.

The transaction completed at the end of December 2022 and was funded by a £12.4m investment by Mobeus alongside vendor and management rollover, with no third-party debt funding.

Chris Price, Mobeus Partner, said: “We are delighted to have backed Jasmin and her team at The Translation People. We have stayed close to the business since 2018 and are delighted to have been able to track its strong performance through Covid-19 and the continued development of the EU operations. We are excited to back a buy and build in what is a highly fragmented market.”

Jasmin Schneider, The Translation People MD commented: “The market for translation services is large and growing. With Mobeus’s support we aspire to be one of the largest LSPs in the UK and to continue to develop our European operations. Mobeus has been extremely supportive of the management team through the process and we have really enjoyed developing the strategy together.”