Barclays Private Equity, the buy-out arm of the UK bank, has closed its fourth deal in just over two weeks with the €44m ($48m) management buy-out of The NCC Group, a software company.

Investments in IT account for about 14% of the firm's portfolio. Tony Hyams, who led the deal from the Manchester office, said although the sector had proved volatile, this was an exceptional case in a down-turned market.