Altium sees surge in deal values
INVESTMENT bank Altium’s UK team has seen a 94% surge in deal value over the last 12 months.
The Manchester-headquartered group, said the total deal value for the firm in the last three years, including its overseas offices, is now more than £9bn.
Key 2014 deals include US PE firm The Riverside Company buying a majority stake in Warrington-based accountancy firm Brookson and the sale of Scientific Analysis Laboratories (SAL) to the newly formed Concept Life Sciences, which is backed by Equistone.
Most recently, it advised on the £303.7m takeover of Italian restaurant chain Prezzo by global private equity fund TPG and last week led the sale of London-based retailer sofa.com.
As well as its UK offices, Altium operates from 16 locations worldwide, with eight in Europe.
Phil Adams, chief executive of Altium, said: “The group has performed exceptionally well over the past 12 months and it’s a great testament to our team that they have completed over 50 deals in that period.
We have reshaped our UK business, focusing solely on M&A, and since taking that decision have achieved three years of considerable growth in revenue, profit, deal size and volume of deals. We have focused on sourcing deals directly and this has proved very successful, culminating in the £304m sale of Prezzo.
“Our international reach is critical and has helped us to complete a large number of cross-border transactions. A particular theme has been interest from US buyers in European assets and we have been able to find a large number of strategic buyers from the US in the last year, selling to GE, Neiman Marcus, TPG and Lockheed Martin.
“Although there are some economic headwinds on the horizon we have begun 2015 in very good shape and our pipeline is stronger than it was at the same time last year.”
