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Evergreen Garden Care

Sector

Manufacturing

Service

Mergers & Acquisitions

Apr 2021

One carve-out. 10 countries. 15 months.

When Exponent Private Equity acquired Evergreen Garden Care, the leading supplier of garden products outside North America, from Scotts MiracleGro, Evergreen needed to cut the cord from its former parent and stand up as a fully independent operation. Fast.

That meant migrating 76 systems, moving 600 staff onto new email and devices, building a new technical architecture from scratch, and keeping the business trading throughout. All while integrating three further acquisitions along the way.

They needed people who could get their arms around the whole thing. They called us.

 

The right people, across the board

We put together a team that covered every angle: project managers, an interim CIO, technical engineers, and bespoke software developers. No weak links.

Here's what we delivered:

  • Programme and project management of 76 system migrations, covering EDI, manufacturing control, and all administrative functions.
  • Email and device migration for 600 staff.
  • Design and build new technical architecture and infrastructure.
  • Datacentre set up and related infrastructure.
  • Management of the transition service agreement with Scotts to keep the lights on.
  • Design and recruitment of an in-house IT team, plus appropriate service contracts.
  • An initial IT strategy for the business.
  • Integration of three further acquisitions during the transition period.
  • Project management and support for a multi-language, multi-location, multi-currency SAP S/4HANA implementation, including migration from Scotts' legacy SAP system.

 

A business that can run on its own two feet

15 months. That's all it took for us to take Evergreen from a business entirely dependent on its former parent, to one with standalone, reliable, cost-effective systems and infrastructure, ready to scale. All while Evergreen kept trading without missing a beat.

That's what good looks like.

 
"Waterstons was committed to delivering the best possible results for Evergreen Garden Care from the beginning. We were impressed by how quickly the team understood our business needs and mobilised the right people with the right skills to deliver what we needed and when. The level of detail, care and diligence shown throughout the transition process, which allowed us to carry on business as usual, was outstanding."
Martin Lofnes, CFO, Evergreen Garden Care