Tend to your own garden
Some useful lessons from the wise and the wordly this week
Hello Rainmakers,
We’re steadying ourselves for the summer slowdown. But, this week has seen a real uptick in subscribers.
Welcome to those of you who signed up on the back of either of our two exclusive interviews with two different success stories in the advisory world, Jonathan Boyers of Alvarez & Marsal, and Rob Crews of Momentum Corporate Finance.
We’ll share a couple of choice extracts from them both in the round up below.
This is a reminder that this is a Friday free round up. Please consider supporting this venture with our modest subscription offer to get our longer pieces every Tuesday and Thursday.
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After the highly successful West Midlands Rainmaker Awards, it’s the first year we will have an East Midlands Rainmakers!
The Rainmaker Awards will bring together the East Midlands deals community on November 21st, to celebrate the best deals and teams from the past 12 months, as voted for by the corporate finance community themselves in a one firm, one vote system.
Email gareth.raven@thebusinessdesk.com to book your tickets to what will be an unmissable event for anyone in the corporate finance community.
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WHEN IS A CONSOLIDATOR NOT A CONSOLIDATOR?
Ambitious regional professional services business AMS Group has acquired Chadwicks, an audit firm based in Manchester, to strengthen their market position in the North West mid-market and as part of their buy-and-build strategy.
Led by entrepreneur Ebrahim Sidat, the group expects to make two more acquisitions this year, and not just in the North West.
It has also emerged that Paul Lupton has played a big part in the ongoing strategy of AMS, which is rebranding from Signature Group.
Lupton, a former Deloitte partner, and one of the leading advisers in the region for twenty years. Like Jonathan Boyers, formerly of KPMG, he’s another one who may have left a Big Four firm, but as head of Group Strategy at AMS, he’s been “exceptionally supportive and transparent throughout the process and we are confident we have made the right decision for our clients,” according to Sidat.
Chadwicks, does over £4m in gross-recurring fees, and had been approached by several consolidators looking to sweep up practices of this side in a huge shake up of the professional services market, but Michael Chadwick, Founder and Managing Director of Chadwicks said AMS had a better cultural fit.
Hopefully we’ll be sitting down with Ebi from AMS shortly to find out more.
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WHAT DOES THE DATA SAY?
Private equity deals in the UK are is showing signs of recovery after a subdued 2023.
According to the latest provisional half-year data from CMBOR, the Centre for Private Equity and MBO Research based at Nottingham University Business School the North of England as a whole was once again the UK’s most active area outside London, with 28 transactions completing across the North East, North West and Yorkshire and Humber in H1 2024.
However, deal value still lagged behind that of London, totalling £1bn across the North compared with £5.8bn in London. However, deal value in the North of England was higher than the South East for another year, with deal value in this region totalling £528m.
Andi Tomkinson, Partner at Equistone Partners Europe, sponsor of the research, said: “It’s really encouraging to see buyout activity picking up in the first half of this year, which is indicative of a nationwide increase in activity.The UK has remained Europe’s largest and most active market, with 95 buyouts valued at €16.1bn (£13.8bn).”
Germany ranked second with 48 buyouts valued at €6.3bn, France came third in terms of volume, with 45, but at a cumulative value of €1.7bn, with the snap election likely to further impact activity in the near term.
Prof Kevin Amess (above), Director of CMBOR at Nottingham University Business School, said: “The UK is routinely the biggest and most active European private equity market, even when facing political upheaval, and has consolidated its position with this latest strong set of numbers.
“In France, by contrast, political uncertainty often delays M&A activity, so its own snap general election may act as a further drag on French buyout values in what has already been a quiet year.”
From a sector perspective, TMT (technology, media and telecommunications) and Healthcare reversed the major corrections they suffered in 2023 following a pandemic-era boom.
TMT was the second most active sector by volume (70) and largest by value, €21.6bn – the sector’s highest half yearly share in almost a decade).
The healthcare sector performed strongly on both the buyout and exit side, with 20 buyouts valued at €8bn – almost equalling the 2023 full-year total of €8.9bn already – and 14 realisations valued at €15.8bn, surpassing the full year 2023 total of €11bn.
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CROSS BORDER, CUTTING EDGE
Two York firms, Clive Owen LLP and Andrew Jackson Solicitors LLP, played a key role in enabling the acquisition of Malton-based company, Agroisolab UK, by Source Certain International, an Australian firm specialising in advanced forensic traceability technologies..
Michael Cantwell, corporate finance partner at Clive Owen, said: “This was a fascinating deal to work on, given the cutting-edge technology and the potential for significant growth in the sector.
“We are pleased to have facilitated this strategic deal which is a testament to the expertise of our York office and our ability to work in a global, cross-border market.”
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LESSONS LEARNED IN THE GARDEN
Jonathan Boyers had a lot of time to think on his gardening leave, but especially about culture, as you can see from this small extract from our interview.
He learnt at the feet of KPMG stalwarts in Manchester like Bill Enevoldson and Alan Benzie, ball busting alpha males from the old school, who could be tough taskmasters, but also displayed incredible civic generosity.
Boyers didn’t even apply for a job at KPMG, he just ended up staying after a period of work experience went better than he expected after he had left Lancaster University.
Culturally, he says Alvarez & Marsal is a great fit for him, his team, their commitment to diversity and a value he says he’s learnt to appreciate more over the last year, humility.
“A lot of the investment banks are brutal in the way they treat their staff, right?”
He insists he’s building a team that is genuinely collaborative. “They're kind. We are kind to our people, we're building a team with people coming in from lots of different firms, and so development of the skills and the team and the development and the career development is really important to us.
“We’re very high on integrity,” he says. “There's also a lot of diversity in our team. We're nearly 50% female. I don't believe there'll be another corporate finance business anywhere that has that.”
He points out that for all its imposing American corporate optics, A&M is softer than it looks. It’s still half owned by its founders and founders families are involved in the business. He gives examples of their own personal generosity and support for colleagues and their families.
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CREWS CONTROL
Our other exclusive interview was with Rob Crews of Momentum Corporate Finance, a successful boutique firm in Bristol.
He had some usefuk insights on doing deals with US trade buyers. During the past 12 months alone the firm has acted as advisers on eight deals with a total value of more than £300m.
Deals included the sale of Acquis Insurance to NSM Inc and of Silvertel to discoverIE Group, as well as the acquisition of Lynx UK by TXO.
But experience in dealing with North American trade buyers seems to have contributed to their appeal, particularly as that type of buyer seems to be the most prolific in the market at the moment.
“We have particular experience of disposals involving foreign purchasers, notably to large US acquirers,” Rob says.
The latest deal was advising the shareholders of Mabway on its sale to listed Canadian defence group Calian for an enterprise value of £24m.
Rob said: "2023 was a really good year for us and we were delighted with the success seen by our clients, together with the growth and development of our team.”
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