If you want to make the change, be the change
New government, new faces and a shift of tone
Hello Rainmakers
A particularly warm welcome to all of the hundreds of new subscribers who joined us after our special promotion at this week’s Rainmaker Awards in both Leeds and Manchester.
We’ve had some great stories this week on our paid-for platform. Please consider upgrading to a subscription to see these.
After a round up we’ll share some of the other recent stories with you (for free) and let you see for yourselves what you’ve been missing.
BEING THE CHANGE
Both the Rainmakers awards this week were a great success.
Congratulations to all the winners, in Manchester and Leeds, especially to the individual award winners who spoke so warmly on receiving their awards.
The three fantastic women winners, Catriona Lang and Nicola Merritt (above), and Carly Gulliver (below) all had really poignant things to say about the community and the great changes they are all bringing in their own way.
Nicola, founder of Cortus, the first woman to lift a Rainmaker of the Year Award said: “We launched to market just over three years ago, and it was a blank sheet of paper. We could do what we wanted, how we wanted, and we just wanted to do everything in a genuine, authentic way. We just want to be normal people. I won a piece of work yesterday, and the guy said to me, you were the only person that just talked to me normally. And I thought, you know, that’s all we are. We’re just trying to do deal making an authentic way, being ourselves. And I think our clients really value that.”
Reflecting on her status as the first woman to win Rainmaker of the Year, she added: “There have been challenges along the way, but it doesn’t have to be like that. I think there’s a lot of diversity in the room with lots of people doing things differently than how we did things 20 years ago. There’s still a long way to go, but if you want to make the change, be the change.”
Carly Gulliver from Addleshaw Goddard won the Changemaker of the Year in Yorkshire said: “I love the intimacy of the community, in terms of actually being able to get deals done, and create deals and make things happen. In particular, one of my passions is tech and we’ve got an absolutely thriving tech community in Yorkshire.”
Catriona, from Dow Schofield Watts, the North West Changemaker, said: “I set the business up 15 and a half years ago, I know we don’t look old enough, but we decided that we wanted to disrupt the market in terms of big four big accountancy firms offering due diligence, and we did quite well.”
We’ll hopefully catch up with all of them very soon for a more indepth chat, not least with Richard Goldsack at Clearwater, our Yorkshire rainmaker, about the deal that kept him away from last night’s dinner.
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In the autumn of 2022, Bridges Fund Management was “delighted to announce” it had taken a majority stake in Hull document management company Storetec.
Bridges partner Simon Braham was clear that his fund had “identified Storetec as a best-in-class operator in this sector, and we believe it has a really compelling market opportunity”.
The deal was for 100% of the company, with Bridges paying £30m from its Sustainable Growth Funds.
A year later, Storetec’s major selling shareholder – founder and chief executive Neil Robson – had been sacked for gross misconduct. That has now been followed up with a High Court claim for the return of nearly £18m, alleging fraud, inflationary practices, and breaches of warranties, all robustly denied.
It took just 18 months to go from “we’re looking forward to partnering” to “we’ll see you in court”. But where did it all go wrong?
The rest of the story is here.
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CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT
The change of government brought some interesting analysis from Andy Lund, Global Co-Head of Houlihan Lokey’s Private Funds Group, who told us:
“The industry has been in active dialogue with the incoming Labour leadership to ensure it fully understands the importance of the sector for future UK growth and dismiss some of the unhelpful and populist myths about the industry that were articulated in the run-up to the election. Within the sector there is optimism about the UK’s return to growth and importantly, with inflation under control, an expectation that interest rates will fall in the near-term. That, together with certainty around the election result, should help unlock the subdued M&A environment which is causing so many liquidity issues for the sector. The hope is that an incoming Labour government will help to drive and support that nascent momentum, as opposed to introducing policy to reverse it.”
“Uncertainty stifles market activity so having the election result will have a beneficial impact. This, combined with an improving economic picture, should have a positive effect on the UK’s M&A market. Labour, with its stated focus on growth, would be wise to reinforce a business and private equity-friendly approach early in its administration, particularly as other competing jurisdictions such as France and the US are undergoing their own political upheavals risking potential capital outflows to more stable environments.”
As a special gift to you, click on the image below and we’ve got the inside scoop on the moves that were made behind the scenes to cosy up to Rachel Reeves by the BVCA and others.
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SECTOR ANGLE
Fresh from celebrating their win as advisory team of the year at this week's Rainmakers Awards, Cowgills has advised a data analytics business based in Cardiff, Yard Data, on its sale to data analytics and implementation specialist Koios Consulting.
Yard Data is a data analytics agency that helps enterprise level clients make informed marketing decisions by providing them with analytics and insights, audience profiling and data personalisation. They have joined forces with Koios Consulting, who are specialists in the field of analytical systems implementation into the financial services industry. Koios has offices in London and Croatia.
Notably, even for a regional accountancy firm Cowgills have developed a particular sector knowledge in this space.
The Manchester-based team led by Brad Seekings (pictured), advised on the transaction, and he said the sale required a specialist buyer and a bespoke deal structure.
He added: “We used our in-house research team and sector knowledge to identify Koios Consulting as a strategic partner for Yard Data in continuing their growth journey in the data analytics sector.”
The Cowgills team was made up of Sam Davies, Brad Seekings, Tom Roberts and Joe Taylor. The deal completion comes just days after Cowgills was named the best Regional Corporate Finance Advisory Team of the Year at The Business Desk’s Rainmaker Awards.
Cowgills recently joined the Sumer Group, a rapidly expanding organisation with a mission to champion smaller and medium-sized businesses.
We’ve got an interview with Warren Mead from Sumer coming soon.
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GOING UP
LDC featured in no less than five deals in the Yorkshire rainmaker Awards, but their Midlands team have also been active this week.
They completed a minority investment in Deltron, a Dudley-based lift repair specialist, with plans to boost its ambitious growth strategy.
LDC says its investment will help Deltron accelerate an ambitious strategy underpinned by investment in its services and complementary acquisitions. Over the last two years, Deltron has delivered significant year-on-year growth and with LDC’s support, the management team plans to build on this momentum by scaling and expanding across the UK.
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Here’s the story about Jo Sellick and how his successful sale of his specialist recruiter to a French trade buyer (and five year earn out) had the unintended consequences of landing him at the gates of private clinic The Priory. Click on the image to read Jo’s story.
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