Agena Group

The business was established in 2005 to meet the demand for automated and professional car park management solutions. It grew to become a scaled parking operator with a national footprint and reputation for efficiency and outstanding customer service.

With the business at an attractive scale, the owners decided to partner with Sovereign to allow them to de-risk, source a highly experienced management team who could guide the business through its next phase of growth, undertake strategic acquisitions and continue to hold an equity stake in the business.

Four acquisitions to create market leading group

Investment in technology infrastructure and enhanced use of data analytics

Augmented the management team with the appointments of Paul Dawson, CEO, formerly with Capita plc, where he held various senior management roles, and Andy Parker, non-executive Chairman, former Group CEO of Capita plc.

Formation of an advisory board and recruitment of Tracy Westall, former Director of Corporate Services for SCC, and a non-executive board member of Department for Transport

Agena installs and manages Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras for its UK SME and corporate customers' car parks to monitor usage, prevent abuse and ensure legitimate users have parking access. Other parking services include managing payments, electronic permits, patrol services and data intelligence.

In 2019 Car Park Management (UKCPM), one of the UK's largest providers of car park management solutions and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) services to enterprise and SME customers, was acquired. Like Agena, UKCPM installs and manages ANPR cameras and provides patrol services to monitor usage, prevent abuse and ensure legitimate users have parking access. This was followed by the acquisition of Stafford-based iView, a proprietary software business which provides ANPR processing capability to the wider parking sector. In autumn 2020, Park Watch also joined the Group.

Since being backed by Sovereign the Group has grown from operating c.840 to over 6,000 sites throughout the UK. Today Agena is an integrated and scaled car park management business delivering an end-to-end service with market-leading proprietary technology and internal processing capabilities.

Sovereign is working with the management team to grow the business both organically and through strategic acquisition to meet the increasing demand for its services.