Rainmaker 2017 Awards – the winners
They came glammed up to the nines in their ballgowns and black ties to salute the North West corporate finance community’s top wheeler dealers.
More than 250 people attended the Rainmaker 2017 Awards, sponsored by finance recruitment specialists Michael Page, at the Midland Hotel in Manchester.
Hosted by TheBusinessDesk.com’s North West editor Joanne Birtwistle and compered by BBC political journalist Nina Warhurst, it was the corporate finance sector’s opportunity to tip hats to companies and individuals who are making the region the most vibrant in the sector outside London.
And the gong winners proved to be worthy ones with their peers voting for them online anonymously.
Happily, the honours were spread quite evenly across the professional community but it was a particularly good night for GCA Altium whose managing director Simon Lord bagged the coveted Rainmaker of the Year award for the outstanding individual who has consistently been at the heart of the significant transactions.
It was a double celebration as Lord’s colleague Dominic Orsini carried off the Rising Star Award for the second year running.
Together, Lord and Orsini advised on the sale of Cawood Scientific, the provider of analytical laboratory testing services into the arable, livestock and environmental sectors, in a secondary buyout backed by mid-market private equity house Inflexion.
Lord has more than 15 years of experience of leading M&A transactions in a variety of sectors including ecommerce, energy and renewables and capital goods. He also has significant private equity experience and has acted for both buyers and sellers on behalf of financial institutions and owner managers.
Altium merged with global investment bank GCA just under a year ago and the combined group celebrated record revenues of £148m this year.
The firm completed 66 transactions last year and high profile deals include the acquisition of Pretty Little Thing by boohoo.com and the MBO of York-based Mitrefinch.
Other contenders in the Rising Star category were Ben Thompson (DC Advisory) (George Potts, NorthEdge), and Richard Stark (KPMG) while Lord’s rivals in the Rainmaker section were Grant Berry (NorthEdge), Jonathan Boyers (KPMG) Oliver Tebbutt (Deloitte).
Law firm Addleshaw Goddard, meanwhile, carried off the accolade of Legal Team of the Year. Its work has spanned not just one significant deal, but has been consistently at the heart of the key transactions.
It advised on a string on high profile deals over the last year, including the float of Accrol on AIM and JD Sports’ acquisition of Go Outdoors.
The firm completed its merger with Scottish practice HBJ last month, creating a £224m turnover law firm with more than 240 partners and 1,100 lawyers.
It moved into its 400 Manchester staff into new offices at One St Peter’s Square earlier this year.
Other transactions have has included advising Santander on its £9m funding of Gusto Restaurants, the fast-growing brand now owned by Palatine Private Equity.
Its banking team advised NorthEdge Capital alongside PwC in the £100m acquisition of Middlesbrough-based Fine Chemicals by $2bn Chinese company Lianhe Chemical Technology.
AG also advised six banks on the £164m acquisition by Ellesmere Port-based chemical manufacturer Innospec of Huntsman Corporation’s European surfactants business.
AG’s win was at the expense of other shortlisted companies DLA Piper, DWF Eversheds Sutherland and Pinsent Masons.
The Corporate Finance Team of the Year went to Clearwater International, who, among other deals, advised mid-market private equity firm LDC on a £38m management buyout of Knutsford, Cheshire-based Fishawack, a provider of scientific marketing and communications services.
Clearwater also advised PE firm NVM when it supported the MBO at Cheshire-based £15m turnover company Thyson Technology from a private investor group. It was also involved in advising NorthEdge Capital on the MBO of Direct Healthcare Services in Caerphilly for an eight-figure sum.
Rivals for glory in this category were Deloitte, KPMG and Rothschild.
NorthEdge Capital won the award for the Venture Capital/Private Equity Team of the Year, beating off competition from ECI Partners, Equistone, LDC and Palatine Private Equity.
NorthEdge, which employs 30 staff, looks at around 200 business opportunities a year but typically does three to five deals a year out of Manchester.
The Manchester-based private equity house which uses the tagline “we know businesses in the North because we are one” has around £550m funds under management.
Key deals were its backing for the MBO at £80m turnover ITC Luxury Travel in a transaction led by partner Ray Stanton.
It was also behind Liverpool-based Abbey Logistics Group to the tune of eight figures as it acquired Armet Logistics, a bulk liquid food transport company to create a £70m turnover business.
NorthEdge also backed the MBO at Deeside company Belfield Furnishings, a £132m turnover company. It recently sold Chorley-based Utiligroup to Energy Services Group for about £100m – a deal we can expect to see shortlisted for next year’s awards.
Manchester-based Tosca Debt Capital emerged the winner of the Funder of the Year ahead of HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Yorkshire Bank.
A relative newcomer, the debt fund was launched in September 2015 by Toscafund. It offers secured debt capital to the regional SME market to facilitate buy-outs and acquisitions, capital raising and refinancing/enhancement of existing facilities.
Tosca was behind a £10m finance deal for Macclesfield-headquartered fintech company Quint Group and backed an MBO at Cheshire-based recruitment firm de Poel which has a £700m revenue stream.
It also provided second-line funding for Palatine Private Equity’s secondary buyout of holiday park group Verdant Leisure.
The Public Markets Deal of the Year award went to the flotation of AIM-listed Blackburn company Accrol, a manufacturer of toilet and kitchen tissue. On admission, the company had a market capitalisation of £93m. The award was collected by KPMG which advised on the deal.
Other contenders in this section were: JD Sports Fashion’s acquisition of outdoor clothing company Go Outdoors in a £128m deal; Crewe-based off-licence operator Conviviality’s purchase of Bibendum PLB, which distributes and wholesales wine, spirit and beer and to the UK on-trade and off-trade markets and Chester-based ID specialist GB Group’s acquisition of biometrics software business IDscan Biometrics for £45m.
The Private Equity Exit Deal of the Year was won by Endless for its exit of packaging business Excelsior Technologies and selling it to FTSE 100 packaging business Mondi in a £33m deal.
Endless’ Enact Fund invested in the loss-making flexible packaging business alongside incumbent investor Growth Capital Partners in December 2014, securing 230 jobs across the business’ two sites in Deeside and Nelson.
The business is forecast to deliver £5.1m EBITDA in 2017. The exit delivered a 9.1x return for Endless investors.
Rival deals in this category were: The flotation Accrol; Clarke Energy, the Knowsley-based distributed power generation specialist, sold to US trade buyer Kohler Power Group for around £300m and LDC’s exit of Chorley-based Synexus, a global research site group which provides patient recruitment and treatment services in support of drug research for clinical trials, in a deal which valued the business at £178m.
All was not lost, however, for Clarke Energy adviser KPMG as the deal won the International Deal of Year Award.
The deal, led by Jonathan Boyers of KPMG, marked an exit for private equity firm ECI.
They triumphed ahead of the Synexus deal and the acquisition by online retailer The Hut Group of a US sports nutrition specialist for a figure believed to be about £77m and Scapa Group’s acquisition US firm EuroMed Inc, which manufactures medical devices, in a £28.9m deal.
The Small Cap Deal of the Year went to Timpson Group’s acquisition of the dry cleaning business of Johnson Service Group Plc for £8.25m. The dry-cleaning business comprises Johnson Cleaners UK Ltd and Jeeves of Belgravia Ltd. Neil Robinson at Mazars and Charles Glaskie Gateley were advisers in the deal.
Wythenshawe-headquartered Timpson has more than 1,400 outlets across the UK and was launched by current chairman John Timpson’s great-grandfather in 1865.
Other shortlisted contenders were Warrington-headquartered retailer Sofology’s securing of £10m from the Business Growth Fund to expand throughout the UK; Holmes Chapel-based Tyres On The Drive, a specialist in professional mobile tyre fitting, raising £8m in equity funding and a secondary MBO of Blackpool-based Healthpoint, which supplies fast moving consumer goods to the retail sector, specialising in the health and beauty markets.
The Out of Town Deal of the Year was won by the sale of managed print services provider Maidstone-based Apogee Corporation, which employ more than 450 staff across the UK and Europe, to Equistone in a transaction valuing the business at £185m.
The other shortlisted deals were: York-headquartered Mitrefinch, a developer of human capital management software with a turnover of around £15m, securing an equity investment of more than £20m from LDC in Manchester as part of an MBO; the Flotation on AIM of Nottingham-based Van Elle Holdings plc, the UK’s largest geotechnical engineering contractor and London-based Travel management firm Reed & Mackay sold to private equity firm Inflexion by previous private equity owners ECI Partners and Livingbridge in a deal thought to be worth £100m-plus.
The M&A Deal of the Year, sponsored by events company Out There Events, was won by Blackburn-based petrol forecourt retailer Euro Garages which agreed to merge with European Forecourt Retail Group (EFR), based in The Netherlands, to create a new holding company, Intervias.
The merged group will have gross annual revenues of EUR6bn, and around 1,450 locations and 8,500 employees. Both Euro Garages and EFR are portfolio companies of TDR Capital.
Other contenders were: The Clarke Energy-Kohler Power Group deal; The founder of specialist lender Together buying back the 30% stake in the company previously held by private equity firms Equistone Partners and SL Capital Partners for more than 10 years for £286.5m and Hulme-based Metronet (UK) Ltd, a provider of wireless and fibre internet services backed by Livingbridge, acquiring internet infrastructure services business M247 Ltd based in Stretford for £47.5m.
