Deals debrief: Zeus; Grant Thornton; Kuits & more
ZEUS Capital in Manchester was lead adviser on the £66.7m AIM lisiting of Conviviality Retail, the Cheshire-based parent company of the Bargain Booze chain of off-licences.
The £64m fund-raising was more than twice over subscribed with 30 institutions participating.
The IPO is the largest by a corporate on AIM in 2013 to date. Zeus Capital acted as Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker.
Diana Hunter, CEO of Conviviality Retail commented; “Zeus Capital has been an outstanding team to work with and managed the process expertly at all times and I am looking forward to continuing the excellent relationship with them as Nomad and broker.”
John Goold, joint CEO of Zeus Capital commented; “We were delighted to act on the deal and in particular to support Diana Hunter in her significant effort to create an innovative incentive scheme for the franchisees which I do not believe the stock market has seen before.
“The scheme could prove to be very powerful. The deal highlights the ability of Zeus Capital to bring together the public and private company service offerings. I believe very few smaller firms could have achieved this.”
The Zeus team included Nick Cowles and Tremayne Ducker.
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A CORPORATE finance team from Grant Thornton in the North West and from Manchester law firm Kuits advised on the sale of Midlands-based vehicle recovery firm Mansfield to South African logistics group Bidvest.
Grant Thornton’s Manchester corporate finance team advised the shareholders on the transaction with a project team that included Ali Sharifi, Charlotte Ashton and Anthony Yu.
The Kuits team was led by corporate and commercial partner Kirsti Pinnell, including corporate associate Jamie Partridge and commercial property solicitor Parvinder Sohal.
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PINSENT Masons’ Manchester office advised German group ALTANA AG on the UK aspects its purchase of the clay additives business from Rockwood Specialties, Inc.
Widnes-based Rockwood Additives, which has been part of NYSE-listed
Rockwood Holdings since 2000, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of rheology additives which optimize the flow characteristics of various materials. It employs 90 staff in the UK.
The Pinsent Masons team advising ALTANA was led by corporate partner Howard Gill assisted by Amie Norris, David Fitzmaurice, Pippa Read, Sean Connolly, Sam Hall, Iain Gamble and Simon Colvin
