Manchester deal helps finance giant hit £11bn-worth of transactions
A deal involving Manchester-based cloud specialist UKFast was one of several major advisory roles undertaken by global advisory firm GCA Altium, it has revealed.
Releasing figures for the 2018 reporting period the bank, which has a Manchester office, said one of its key transactions included advising UKFast on its investment from Inflexion in a deal that valued the cloud-hosting provider at £405m.
Throughout the year it said total revenues for the firm across Europe and Asia increased 35% compared with 2017 to £181m, and have soared threefold over the past five years.
Net income also increased by 115% compared with the previous year.
Over the course of 2018, the firm closed 145 deals globally – up 30% on the prior year.
More than a third of these transactions were cross-border, as a result of GCA’s growing international network.
The group opened five new offices across Asia and Europe in Taipei, Ho Chi Minh City, Leeds, Paris and Nagoya.
The new office openings are in line with the company’s global expansion strategy, which is focused on establishing a strong presence in all key markets with robust corporate ecosystems and transaction dynamics.
Across Europe the firm completed 74 deals worth a total of £11bn in 2018.
It said 31 transactions were led out of GCA Altium’s UK offices with an average transaction value of over £100m.
Active sectors were technology, consumer, business services and industrials.
Major transactions included advising UKFast, as well as advising Wakefield-based video games label Team17 on its £217m AIM IPO, and advising online watch specialist Watchfinder.co.uk on its sale to Swiss-based luxury goods giant Richemont.
GCA Altium chief executive Phil Adams said: “Our business has enjoyed huge momentum in recent years and we started this year with a strong, engaged pipeline, and a highly favourable level of new engagement activity.
“Our 20-strong global office network, diversified client base and impressive results mean we continue to retain and attract exceptional talent to the firm, giving us further fire-power to meet clients’ needs worldwide.
“We look forward to building on our momentum in the year ahead.”
