DLA Piper has advised the shareholders of Nettitude, a market-leading provider of cyber security services, on its sale to Lloyd's Register Group (LR), one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for the engineering and technology sectors.

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.

Founded in 2003, Nettitude is an award-winning provider of cyber security assurance, risk management and managed detection and response services, to organisations across the globe. With 140 employees worldwide, Nettitude 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 and has built a strong reputation in delivering assurance around sophisticated threat agents.

Corporate partner, Noel Haywood, who led the DLA Piper team advising on this transaction, said: "Nettitude is a great business, providing business-critical cyber-security capabilities and solutions. This is an exciting new partnership for the business and we are delighted to have played our part in making this deal happen."

Nettitude founder and CEO Rowland Johnson, said: "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."

The DLA Piper team was led by Corporate partner Noel Haywood, assisted by senior associate Gareth Davies and associate Liam McLoughlin. All based in Birmingham.

Livingstone Partners provided corporate finance advice to the shareholders.