Private equity firm Inflexion hires bankers to oversee a sale of cloud hosting company ANS, worth up to £400m.

The private equity owner of ANS, the cloud hosting provider formerly known as UKFast, has begun a sale process aiming for a £400m valuation, Sky News has learned.

Investment bank Arma Partners has been hired by Inflexion to manage the sale, with interest expected from rival private equity firms. ANS, headquartered in Manchester, provides cloud computing and hosting services to corporate clients.

The move comes nearly four years after Inflexion acquired UKFast in 2021 and rebranded it following a scandal involving its controversial founder, Lawrence Jones.

UKFast was once one of Britain’s most prominent hosting firms, but its reputation was tarnished after a 2019 Financial Times exposé detailed allegations against Lawrence Jones. In 2023, Jones was convicted of rape and sexual assault, receiving a 15-year prison sentence. His MBE, awarded for services to the digital economy, was revoked in December 2024.

To distance itself from the scandal, UKFast merged with ANS, another cloud services company, retaining the latter’s name. ANS was originally founded by Scott Fletcher, a former child actor known for roles in Casualty and Jossy’s Giants.

Industry insiders estimate the sale price for ANS will fall between £300m and £400m, reflecting its strong market position. The company competes with major cloud service providers, offering digital transformation solutions to businesses across the UK.

Potential buyers are expected to include private equity firms eager to invest in cloud computing, a sector that continues to experience rapid growth.

The sale is part of a broader trend of consolidation within the tech industry, as firms seek scale to compete with global giants like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

While ANS has successfully moved past its troubled history, the upcoming sale will determine its next chapter—whether under new ownership or through a strategic merger with another cloud provider.