Jerrold refinancing boosts quiet summer for deals

FINANCE group Jerrold’s £640m refinancing deal in September was the highlight of a subdued third quarter for corporate finance activity in Greater Manchester, research reveals.

Cheadle-based Jerrold Holdings,  a secured lender, extended its facilities with a syndicate of banks comprising Royal Bank of Scotland, National Australia Bank, Lloyds Banking Group and The Co-operative Bank. The three year deal saw Jerrold raise the funds via a £395m structured securitisation and a £245m syndicated loan.

The Q3 Deals Review published by pro.manchester, in association with Experian Corpfin, reveals that Manchester advisers worked on 60 deals in
Q3 2012, seven fewer than in the previous quarter and 36% fewer than Q3 2011.

The combined value of these deals (where the value was disclosed)
was £867.42m – with the lion’s share coming from the Jerrold transaction.

The review shows that during a quiet summer for deal activity, the bulk of the deals that were completed were in the small cap segment, where there was 15 deals worth a total of £52.87m. This represents a fall of 16.67%  from the previous quarter in terms of the number of deals, and a drop of 9.65% in terms of the value.

This picture was replicated in the mid-market space (£10m-£100m enterprise value) where eight recorded transactions represented a
27.27% decline over the Q2 tally, with the value of these deals falling by 59.43%.