West Midlands corporate deals review in association with Clearwater International
By Gareth Iley, partner, Clearwater International
In the month that saw Adele perform four sold out shows at Birmingham’s Genting Arena, Leicester City edge towards the premier league title and Aston Villa pretty much sealing their fate of relegation, TheBusinessDesk.com recorded a total of 32 deals in the Midlands, a slight increase on February’s 30.
Midlands based acquirers out in full force
The month kicked off with the acquisition of third party logistics company Great Bear Distribution by Shropshire-based logistics group Culina; significantly strengthening its market leading position in Ambient Logistics. The combined group has turnover of more than £400m, a combined workforce of around 5,000 staff, and a fleet of more than 600 vehicles, making it a large player in the UK market. The deal marked Culina’s second acquisition in the last 2 years having previously acquired specialist contract packing service provider, IPS in April 2014.
The market itself seems to be attracting attention as well. Just last week mid-market private equity firm LDC backed the £17m management buyout of logistics firm Panther Group.
Birmingham-based theme park and attraction tickets specialist, Attraction World, purchased – with support from Barclays – the well-known brand ‘Day out with the Kids’. The company provides information and ideas for things to do across the UK and Ireland and has 100 million page views per year.
Attraction World sells tickets for more than 3,000 attractions in 60 countries and works with tourism clients such as Thomas Cook, TUI and Barrhead Travel. Since its establishment in 2006, they have seen unbroken year or year revenue and profit growth, and help over one million customers each year pre-booking worldwide attractions.
The company was acquired in a £6.9m MBO in 2010 backed by private equity firm Maven Capital Partners. Burton-on-Trent-based listed pharmaceutical group Clinigen gained access to the important US market with the purchase of cancer treatment drug Totect (dexrazoxane) from Biocodex USA – the third acquisition in the last year for the company following the £100m purchase of Australia-based Link Healthcare in October 2015, and the £225m acquisition of UK-based IDIS in April 2015.
The drug is an emergency medicine used to reverse the toxic effects of anthracycline anti-cancer treatment and is patent protected in US, Canada and Mexico. The acquisition, together with the group’s purchase of SAVENE® (dexrazoxane) from SpePharm AG in 2014, gives Clinigen a complete global footprint in the sector.
The deal marked the beginning of more exciting times ahead for Clinigen, who announced a 74% increase in adjusted EBITDA for the six months to December 2015 and is positioned for additional growth through the rest of 2016.
March was also an exciting time here at Clearwater International. During the month we announced the merger with Easton Corporate Finance in France and @VISORY Partners Corporate Finance in Germany, creating a 200-strong firm with 15 offices across 8 countries. The move marked an important step in realising our ambitions of becoming the leading global mid-market advisory firm,
All in all, the Midlands showed its strength this month with these acquisitions and despite uncertainty over the referendum we expect the Midlands to continue to be a significant contributor to M&A activity.
