Yorkshire deals market review in association with Grant Thornton
Dennis Sorbie, TAS associate director at Grant Thornton Leeds, talks to TheBusinessDesk.com about a strong deals surge for Yorkshire
The weather may have been wreaking havoc on the business community’s commutes in recent weeks but it hasn’t dampened deal activity across the region.
Indeed, February witnessed one of the busiest months for deals recently with 42 transactions taking place, roughly a quarter of which had private equity involvement. The £9m management buyout of Dale Power Solutions, one of the UK’s leading providers of secure power solutions, by NVM Private Equity was of interest as it marked the first MBO from NVM’s NVM Private Equity Vintage III LP.
Keighley-based Stairlift designer and manufacturer Platinum Stairlifts saw investment from NorthEdge Capital, which backed a management team led by founder Tim Frear, while Bowmark Capital supported the buy-out of Sheffield broadband firm ASK4 from previous institutional investor, Darwin Private Equity.
February’s flurry of deals was well above the average of 29 deals per month seen since June 2017 and follows a strong start to 2018, with 30 deals also having completed in January.
It was a particularly busy period in the listed space last month, with Bradford-based Morrisons acquiring Chippindale Foods, a leading supplier of free range eggs based in Flaxby, North Yorkshire. The move will see the big four supermarket make even more of its own fresh food and the retailer expects to become more competitive for customers on important everyday products.
Goole-based Croda Europe announced the acquisition of research and development firm Plant Impact in a £10m deal with Steve Foots, group chief executive of Croda, saying the deal would extend Croda’s capabilities in the crop care sector, supporting its strategy of investing in high growth markets and world leading technologies.
Sheffield-based Fulcrum, acquired the Dunamis Group for £22m, while engineering services group Renew Holdings announced the disposal of loss-making division Forefront, an engineering services business focused in the gas infrastructure market.
Other notable PLC deals included two takeovers by transport software provider Tracsis and Sheffield-based SIG offloading SIG Building Systems division to Urban Splash Modular.
So what’s driving this positive start to 2018? M&A activity continues to be supported by highly liquid debt and equity markets, while business performance and investment strategy are always key factors. Additionally, we’ve undoubtedly seen the typical post-Christmas bounce with principals and advisers looking to get deals they were working on over the New Year over the line.
What is evident on the back of a strong start to the year is that there have been, and continue to be, a large number of great Yorkshire businesses available and an appetite and confidence to invest in them which will hopefully keep all involved in the M&A focussed business community busy over the coming months.
