Law firm bucks the national trend with a flurry of deals in last quarter
Law firm Turner Parkinson has sealed a series of deals over the last three months.
The Manchester firm – which was recently acquired by Knights – has completed a flurry of regional and national deals in the last quarter.
Despite the market seeing a 9% drop in deal volume and a 25% drop in the value of deals completed across the North West during the first half of 2018, Turner Parkinson bucked the trend and delivered a 13% increase in deal volumes alongside a 17% increase in deal value.
There have been a number of regional and national deals during the period with three notable buy-side acquisitions.
The purchase of Intus Healthcare by Crewe-based Baywater Healthcare was completed in May while the team also advised on Logson Group’s acquisition of Cardboard Box Company in June, followed by the £45m purchase of Sanofi’s business operations and manufacturing centre in Holmes Chapel by Swedish pharmaceutical giant Recipharm.
James Sheridan, the head of the Manchester office, said: “Working with quality corporates like Recipharm, Baywater and Logson to grow their businesses is what Turner Parkinson is all about and I am particularly pleased that all three have long-standing relationships with us which we have built over many years.
“While mid-market M&A has been strong for some time with quality corporates taking advantage of the relative ease with which they have been able to fund acquisitions, the shadow of Brexit and the associated political wrangling at home and overseas are likely to tighten things over coming months.
“However, this has not slowed the flow of quality businesses looking to sell and, for now at least, we see a strong stream of those for Autumn and into 2019, both in the UK and overseas.”
Outside of M&A deals, the corporate team has also been particularly active, working on three private equity deals during the period.
Technology consultancy and software provider Gaist Solutions secured a £2.7m investment from the Business Growth Fund in June while life sciences business Foresight Group made a £2m investment into Epistem.
The team then worked with BGF to invest £6.4m in web hosting company Miss Group.
David Easdown, corporate partner, commented: “It’s great to see the mid-market businesses that we work with so closely day in, day out receive interest from both BGF and Foresight who are specialists in that market.
“We are uniquely able to offer a duel Partner level approach to these deals which enables us to deliver an efficient deal process on time and on budget.”
Turner Parkinson’s busy summer comes after the firm was ranked 4th in the North West for Experian’s most active dealmakers in 2018 and as it continues to stand out as the number one independent business law firm in the region.
James Sheridan added: “There is no doubt that our corporate team has out-performed the market over the last few months.
“That is great – but we are an ambitious business and given that we now have the economic firepower of Knights behind us, we plan to grow our business in Manchester much more quickly than we have done previously.
“Having driven very strong organic growth in our business over the past five or six years, we are now looking to accelerate this growth in Manchester by welcoming additional talented professionals and teams who like to work with quality mid-market businesses.”
