Altium in £250m merger with global investment bank
MANCHESTER-headquartered Altium has announced a £250m-plus merger with GCA – a listed Japanese investment bank.
The combined businesses generated revenue of more than £120m in 2015 and have completed upwards of 315 deals between them in the last three years.
The unified company will have offices in San Francisco, Manchester, New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Mumbai, London, Osaka, Beijing, Singapore, Munich, Zurich, Milan and Tel Aviv.
Altium chief executive Phil Adams said: “We have experienced huge growth in the last few years of more than 100%. This deal takes our business to a new level as we will now have over 300 professionals in 14 offices across 10 countries covering every important market.”
“The US, Asian and European divisions are all a similar size. The US division is focused heavily on tech and growth companies in general and complements our leading position in technology and eCommerce in Europe.
“The Asian division advises many blue chip corporates such as Minolta and Hitachi. For our clients in the UK I believe this will give us unparalleled access to US private equity, venture investors and US and global trade buyers, which in turn means we can give an even better service to our clients.”
The move makes the enlarged business the seventh largest listed M&A business in the world.
It marks a remarkable transformation of the firm from being predominantly a broking business in 2011 to a fully integrated global M&A business and highlights the increasing trend towards independent advisors who are not tied to accountancy practices or banks.
Last year Altium had a record year advising on mega deals such as New Look and Douglas as well as local deals such as Bifold.
Adams joined Altium in 1996 before becoming group CEO of Altium in 2010. He continues to be based in Manchester working alongside office head Simon Lord.
