Catalyst advises on £234m tertiary buy-out of recruitment business
CATALYST Corporate Finance has advised the management team of NES Global Talent, which has an office in Birmingham, on a tertiary buy-out in a £234m deal. The finance has been provided by US investment group AES.
NES places highly skilled contract engineers and project managers with blue chip, multi-national clients, including Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, Total, Petrobas and Chevron Texaco principally in the oil and gas industries, but also in the power and infrastructure sectors.
In the year to the end of October turnover grew by more than 30% to £380m and EBITDA rose to £16.8m. The company employs 450 people across 32 offices worldwide including London, Rio de Janeiro, Houston and Perth in Australia.
The tertiary buy-out was led by CEO Neil Tregarthen, Group Finance Director Stephen Buckley and Group Managing Director, Simon Cotton. Originally backed by Bridgepoint, the business was then bought by Graphite in 2006 as a secondary buy-out.
NES’ new owner AEA Investors was founded in 1968 by some of the biggest and most influential families in the United States, such as the Rockefellers, Mellons, and Harrimans, together with banking giant SG Warburg & Co. It is used as a private investment vehicle for a select group of industrial family offices with substantial assets.
Mark Humphries, partner at Catalyst, said: ”This is an important deal in the private equity market at the present time. The business attracted a lot of interest from private equity investors clearly demonstrating there is a high level of appetite in the £100m plus equity cheque market.”
Catalyst said its wide experience of private equity backed deals and in-depth knowledge of the recruitment sector had been crucial to the success of the deal.
