The private equity backer of the technology company previously known as UKFast is exploring a sale that it hopes will fetch a £400m price tag.

Sky News has learnt that Inflexion, the buyout firm, has hired investment bankers to orchestrate a sale of ANS, which provides cloud hosting services to corporate customers.

UKFast was rebranded as ANS in the wake of revelations in the Financial Times in 2019 about the conduct of UKFast’s founder, Lawrence Jones.

Mr Jones was convicted of rape and sexual assault in 2023, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In December, he was stripped of his MBE, which had been awarded for services to the digital economy in 2015.

Arma Partners is understood to have been hired to advise on the sale of ANS, which was acquired by Inflexion in 2021.

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ANS was founded by Scott Fletcher, a former child actor who appeared in television shows such as Casualty and Jossy’s Giants.

The combined group, which is based in Manchester, is expected to be worth between £300m and £400m, according to banking sources.

Prospective bidders are expected to include other private equity firms.

Inflexion declined to comment.

A former chief executive of Aston Villa and Liverpool is a surprise contender to become the inaugural chairman of the government’s controversial football watchdog.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that Christian Purslow, who left Villa Park in 2023, is on a three-person shortlist being considered by Whitehall officials to chair the Independent Football Regulator (IFR).

Mr Purslow, an outspoken character who has spent much of his career in sports finance, was this weekend said to be a serious candidate for the job despite having publicly warned about the regulator’s proposed remit and its potential impact on the Premier League.

A former commercial chief at Chelsea Football Club, Mr Purslow spent an eventful 16 months in charge at Anfield, spearheading the sale of Liverpool to its current owners following a bitter fight with former principals Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

He joined Aston Villa in 2018 when the club was in its third consecutive season in the Championship, seeing them promoted via the play-offs at the end of that campaign.

It was unclear this weekend how much of the football pyramid would respond to the appointment of a chairman at the regulator who has been so closely associated with top-flight clubs, given ongoing disagreement between the Premier League and English Football League (EFL) about the future distribution of finances.

One ally of Mr Purslow said, though, that his independence was not in doubt and that his experience of working outside the Premier League would also be valuable if he landed the IFR chairman role.

Another senior football figure said Mr Purslow “would be welcomed by the football community as someone who has worked in football, and not as a civil servant or politician”.

In the past, Mr Purslow has both welcomed the prospect of further regulatory oversight of the sport, while also warning in a BBC interview in 2021, during his stint at Villa Park: “The Premier League has really always been the source of funding for the rest of football and the danger here is killing the golden goose, if we over-regulate a highly successful and commercial operation.

“I think we have to be very careful as we contemplate reform that it does not ultimately damage the game.

“We already have a hugely successful English football Premier League – the most successful in the world.”

Two years later, however, he told Sky News’ political editor, Beth Rigby: “I like the idea that the government wants to be involved in our national sport.

“These [clubs] are hugely important institutions in their communities, economically and socially – so it’s right that they [the government] are interested.”

The disclosure of Mr Purslow’s candidacy means that two of the three shortlisted contenders for what will rank among the most powerful jobs in English football have now been identified by Sky News.

On Friday, it emerged that Sanjay Bhandari, the chairman of Kick It Out, the football anti-racism charity, was also in the frame for the Manchester-based position, which will pay £130,000-a-year.

A decision is expected in the coming weeks, with the third candidate expected to be a woman given the shift in Whitehall to gender-diverse shortlists for public appointments.

The establishment of the regulator, which was originally conceived by the previous Conservative government in the wake of the furore over the failed European Super League project, has triggered deep unrest in the sport.

This week, Steve Parish, the influential chairman of Premier League side Crystal Palace, told a sports industry conference organised by the Financial Times that the watchdog “wants to interfere in all of the things we don’t need them to interfere in and help with none of the things we actually need help with”.

“We have a problem that we’re constantly being told that we’re not a business and [that] we’re part of the fabric of communities,” he is reported to have said.

“At the same time, we’re…being treated to the nth degree like a business.”

Interviews for the chair of the football regulator took place in November, with a previous recruitment process curtailed by the calling of last year’s general election.

Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, will sign off on the appointment of a preferred candidate, with the chosen individual expected to face a pre-appointment hearing in front of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee.

The Football Governance Bill is proceeding through parliament, with its next stage expected in March.

It forms part of a process that represents the most fundamental shake-up in the oversight of English football in the game’s history.

The establishment of the body comes with the top tier of the professional game wracked by civil war, with Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City at the centre of a number of legal cases over its financial dealings.

The government has dropped a previous stipulation that the regulator should have regard to British foreign and trade policy when determining the appropriateness of a new club owner.

The IFR will monitor clubs’ adherence to rules requiring them to listen to fans’ views on issues including ticket pricing, while it may also have oversight of the parachute payments made to clubs in the years after their relegation from the Premier League.

The top flight has issued a statement expressing reservations about the regulator’s remit, while the IFR has been broadly welcomed by the English Football League.

A Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation.

“No appointment has been made and the recruitment process for [IFR] chair is ongoing.”

Mr Purslow was abroad this weekend and did not respond to a request for comment.

The banking sector is “investing heavily” in digital platforms, according to the body which represents the country’s lenders as many face a backlash over the latest payday glitch chaos to hit customers.

Millions were exposed on Friday to varying challenges from slow app or online banking performance to being blocked out of their accounts altogether.

Users said the brands caught up in the issues – which did not appear to be the result of a single problem – included Lloyds, Halifax, Nationwide, TSB, Bank of Scotland and First Direct.

It marked the second month in a row for payday problems and no reasons have been given for them.

Money latest: How is my bank affected by banking glitch?

The industry has been historically reluctant to talk about the common challenges but its mouthpiece, UK Finance, told Sky News there was help available and protections in place during times of disruption while acknowledging customer frustrations.

The body spoke up as MPs and regulators take a greater interest in the resilience issue due to mounting concerns over the number of glitches.

All this comes at a time when major lenders face criticism for continuing to cut branch services at a regular pace – blaming ever higher demand for online services.

The UK’s big banking brands have been shutting branches since the fallout from the financial crisis in 2008, which sparked a rush to cut costs.

The uptake of digital banking services has seen more than 6,200 sites go to the wall since 2015, according to the consumer group Which?

The latest closures were revealed last month by Lloyds – Britain’s biggest mortgage lender.

Its announcements meant that it planned, across the group, to have just 386 Lloyds-branded branches left, with Halifax down to 281.

Bank of Scotland would have just 90 once the closure programme was completed.

Critics have long accused the industry of failing to sufficiently invest their branch closure savings in better online services.

But a UK Finance spokesperson said: “All banks invest heavily in their systems and technology to ensure customers have easy access to banking services.

“Where issues arise, they work extremely hard to rectify them quickly and to support their customers.

“Banks have been posting information on their websites and social media accounts to ensure they keep customers updated.”

Are banks doing enough?

Earlier this month, The Treasury committee of MPs wrote to bank bosses to request information on the scale and impact of IT failures over the past two years.

Their responses should have been received by Wednesday.

The letters followed an outage at Barclays which led to some customers being unable to access some services for up to three days from Friday 31 January.

The day marked HMRC’s self-assessment deadline alongside pay day.

The Bank of England has also been taking a greater interest in the issue for financial stability reasons.

The MPs sought data from the banks on the volumes of customers affected by glitches – and the compensation that had been offered.

Committee chair, Dame Meg Hillier, said then: “When a bank’s IT system goes down, it can be a real problem for our constituents who were relying on accessing certain services so they can buy food or pay bills.

“For it to happen at a major bank such as Barclays at such a crucial time of year is either bad luck or bad planning. Either way, it’s important to learn what has happened and what will be done about it.

“The rapidly declining number of high street bank branches makes the impact of IT outages even more painful; that’s why I’ve decided to write to some of our biggest banks and building societies.”