Yorkshire Deal Market Review in Association with Grant Thornton

Dan Rosinke, TAS Partner at Grant Thornton Leeds talks to the TheBusinessDesk.com about the confident kick-off to 2018 evident across the Yorkshire deal market.

Dealmakers ignored the New Year frosts and jumped straight back into action, resulting in plenty of activity across the deal market in January. It seems that Brexit considerations are doing little to deter dynamic Yorkshire businesses from pushing forward to achieve their strategic goals for growth with 30 deals completed in January.

In fact, the nature of global markets was evident as six of the 14 M&A transactions completed in January saw exciting cross-border acquisitions. These deals included: the acquisition of Sheffield-based software and analytics firm, SEAMS by Arcardis (Netherlands); Croda’s acquisition of Canadian marine biotechnology specialist, Nautilus Biosciences; Travel Parking Group’s expansion into Portugal; Harrogate dental implant expert Neoss buying Arc Solutions (Sweden) and the sale of Polypipe’s French operations to Ryb.

There was a hive of domestic M&A activity back on home soil too, further signifying business confidence at Board level. Examples of these were Harrogate-based PR firm, Acceleris’ purchase of Limelight PR; Banner Group’s acquisition of Ventura Office Supplies and Hudderfield’s Simply Biz buying Landmark, the chartered surveying-arm of estate agency group, Andrews, to cite but a few.

Private Equity activity was also strong across a range of sectors, attesting to the attractiveness of the region’s diverse businesses to investors, both from the UK and from overseas. Most notably, popular beauty and wellbeing brand, Neom Organics, which received funding from consumer brand specialist, Piper, and Australian firm, Global Merces putting £1.9 million into Leeds-based virtual reality studio XR Games, to support its expansion. Digital and gaming is one of the Yorkshire’s growth driving industries, so it is encouraging to see expansion plans in place for this business. Positive too is the investment from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF) and Mercia Equity Finance to expand the management team at fast-growing, Azzure IT, located in Sheffield. NPIF also provided growth capital for the MBO of manufacturer, Gee Graphite.

In addition, Kelling Group Limited changed hands from Elysian Capital LLP to Alinda Capital Partners and BGF had a busy month, providing £6 million funding for Northern Escalator and a further £1million for automotive component manufacturer, VTL.

Most notably however was the £20 million funding into Wakefield-based, Complete Business Solutions from Abercross Holdings to support the company’s acquisition strategy, increase its footprint and enhance its service offering.

Capital raising activity this month was seen in two deals. The first involved development funding for Harrogate-based mobile technology company, Mobile Tornado, for additional investment into its markets in South America, Africa and the Middle East. The second involved Fishing Republic raising £1.3 million through placing to fund development in e-commerce, logistics and merchandising activities.

Also, local offices of Banks supported development requirements for Excel Water (Santander), Pure Renewables (Barclays), Farmac Timber (HSBC) and Galwad Shellfish (RBS)

With activity already strong across the professional community in the first month of the year, we look forward to commenting on these trends as they translate into completions this spring and summer.

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