Our Restructuring and Advisory Division sees corporate finance deal boom

Our Restructuring and Advisory Division’s corporate finance team has completed a record-breaking eight transactions in the last fortnight, at a combined value of over £130m.

Happening in quick succession, the majority of the deals took place in the South of England, namely London, Oxfordshire and Reading.

As a significant cross-border deal announced today, by the Restructuring and Advisory Division advised on the acquisition of digital content platform and publisher Dezeen by Danish media company JP/Politiken Media Group.

Exits were a reoccurring theme throughout the transactions. These included the sale of Collaborative Project Management Services (CPMS) to French engineering group Egis, which saw YFM Equity Partners exit the business, and the partial shareholder exit of professional services provider of Microsoft identity and cyber security solutions ThirdSpace, which also included an investment from TiG, backed by BGF.

Management buyouts (MBOs) backed by private equity have proved a popular exit strategy in recent weeks, with our Restructuring and Advisory Division advising on the disposal of facilities management business Pareto FM in an £18m MBO supported by NVM Private Equity, in addition to the MBO of data and network security specialist Phoenix Datacom, backed by private equity giant LDC.

Led by managing director Ian Barton, the team also completed the disposal of compliance training consultancy Compliancy Services to an MBO backed by Ethos Partners.

Our Restructuring and Advisory Division’s Transaction Services team, led by Jonathan Thornton, has also completed a number of deals in this period, including the team’s first vendor due diligence with data centre owner and operator Amito’s £38m transaction with investment from Harwood PE. Additionally, they advised Herida Healthcare on its acquisition of healthcare manufacturer Select Medical.

Ian Barton, managing director at our Restructuring and Advisory Division and the lead advisor for most of the deals, said: “This has been the busiest period that our Restructuring and Advisory Division has ever had for completing corporate finance transactions. Driven by entrepreneurs anticipating changes to Capital Gains Tax in the Chancellor’s Budget on 3rd March, we saw incredible appetite from both buyers and sellers. Whilst no change materialised from the Budget, there remains an expectation that changes will be forthcoming, and we continue to experience growing activity levels despite the surge of deal completions in the last few weeks.

“After an inevitable pause in transactions in the first few months of the pandemic, we have seen accelerating activity since last autumn and the deals market has bounced back stronger than ever, with new types of transactions coming to the fore. Deals are happening at pace and our pipeline is strong, so we expect continued deal activity for the next few months ahead.”

Mark Lucas, corporate finance lead across the K3 Group, said: “Our Restructuring and Advisory Division has gone from strength-to-strength in the last 12 months and, following our merger with K3 Capital Group last year, we have added further depth to our corporate finance offering. I was delighted to see KBS recognised as the most active adviser in the South East in 2020 and these eight deals further underline that status for the Group in the first few months of 2021. Across the K3 Group we are continuing to invest in our ability to support businesses across all regions and sectors through significant periods of change.