Portfolio spotlight: Octavius Infrastructure

Sullivan Street Partners offers a closer look at its portfolio company, Octavius Infrastructure , celebrating its success and reflecting on its evolution.

Sullivan Street carved out Octavius Infrastructure in 2021 from its parent company Geoffrey Osborne Group. The business had established a strong reputation in rail and road infrastructure services built on a highly collaborative, customer-centric culture. Many financial buyers would not have been comfortable with the work and risks involved in the separation. However, with a dedicated team and a clear vision, we were able to establish Octavius as a fully independent entity within nine months.

Once independent, Sullivan Street has played a pivotal role in growing Octavius’ value, setting ambitious goals for expansion, regional diversification and operational efficacy, and focus on electrification, complex projects, and impactful civil engineering.

Richard Sanders, Managing Partner and Co-Founder, said: “Thanks to our partnership, the excellent management team, and hard work across the organisation, Octavius has had unprecedented success, emerging as the only contractor in the UK to win frameworks across all four regions in England & Wales. By adding electrification capabilities and a design business, Octavius is very well placed to drive great results for its clients, keeping the trains running and the roads working.”

In 2023 alone, Octavius made two bolt-on acquisitions – R&W, a civil engineering contractor specialising in highway and engineering services, and Navitas Engineering Ltd, a railway consultant providing electrification, engineering, and design services to infrastructure supply industries.

In addition to assisting the company in its financial growth, Sullivan Street has also commited to key social and environmental initiatives. Octavius has generated over £80 million through local supply chain partnerships, partaken in over 2000 hours of volunteering initiatives, and taken on 25 apprentices. The business has also made great strides in its environmental objectives, reducing its Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 27%, and is on track to achieve its ambitious goal of net zero emissions by 2035.