Livingstone’s Defence & Security sector team has advised the shareholders of Nettitude, a market-leading provider of cyber security services with some of the most sophisticated technical capabilities in the industry, on its acquisition by Lloyd’s Register (LR).

LR is one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology, improving safety and increasing the performance of critical infrastructures for clients in over 75 countries worldwide.

Founded in 2003, Leamington Spa-based Nettitude is an award-winning provider of cyber security assurance, risk management and managed detection and response services, to high profile organisations across the globe.  With 140 employees worldwide, the company is a research-led organisation that has developed innovative tools and techniques to mitigate the constantly evolving cyber threat. The organisation delivers around the clock security operations services to clients through its managed service solution and has built a strong reputation in delivering assurance around sophisticated threat agents.

LR already provides a range of cyber security services to its clients, including certification, compliance, training, audit and security consulting.  The acquisition strengthens LR’s existing portfolio to provide market leading cyber security services to clients, including penetration testing, information security consulting, managed security services and incident response handling.

Nettitude founder and CEO Rowland Johnson commented: “The combination of Nettitude’s focused cyber security capability and LR’s ability to execute across a broad range of sectors will make a formidable partnership.  As the worlds of Information Technology and Operating Technology collide, the need to build integrated cyber security solutions will become essential. LR’s geographic reach, and vision for how technology and data will influence industry will supercharge Nettitude’s growth, and provide significant synergies to LR’s clients and partners.”

LR CEO Alastair Marsh said: “This is an important acquisition for Lloyd’s Register to enhance our capability in assuring the increasingly complex supply chains in which we operate.  Information and operational technology security is a key concern for our clients across all sectors, as we see increasing dependencies on technology and challenges created by Industry 4.0.”

The combination of Nettitude’s service portfolio and LR’s existing capabilities provides a complete suite of cyber security services to help clients identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from cyber threats.

Rowland Johnson went on to add: “We appointed Livingstone to ensure that we had the definitive corporate finance experts in cyber security on our side and they have more than repaid our confidence in them. Livingstone quickly got to the heart of our value proposition, had a clear view of which potential partners would meet our requirements - strategically and culturally – and managed a very discrete, very effective competitive process. They represented our interests with passion and determination and supported us throughout the process. We are delighted with the outcome as we look forward to the next phase in Nettitude’s development as part of Lloyd’s Register."

Graham Carberry, Partner at Livingstone, added “Nettitude is a world-class cyber solutions provider which has found a strategic and highly compatible new owner in LR, a global institution with a 258 year history of making the world a safer place and a watchword for integrity.”

Nettitude is the third cyber security solutions provider that Livingstone has sold in recent years, following the sales of ContextIS to Babcock and Info-Assure to BSi. Livingstone has also advised LR on the sale of its rail engineering consultancy division.