Private Investors
Regent Assay Corporate Finance, together with it’s investment arm, Regent Assay Development Capital, worked with TFM for over 24 months to reorganise the group to facilitate an acquisition strategy, culminating in Global Communications, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Waveworks, joining the group.
The whole transaction results in a group which has doubled in size overnight and now has the resources and capability to achieve further significant growth both organically and through further acquisitions.
TFM and Waveworks both operate in the TMT sector and provide telecoms and internet services and support to a number of blue chip SMEs, and boast an impressive client list, including the likes of Travelodge, Cineworld and Wates.
Regent Assay Development Capital
Regent Assay Development Capital and funds advised by Regent Assay Corporate Finance have invested a 7 figure sum into DBK LLP, the UK’s leading independent project management and cost consultancy services provider to the property and construction industry.
Headquartered in Birmingham and with offices in London, Manchester and Bournemouth, DBK provides bespoke consulting services to many of the UK’s leading property developers. Established in 1978 and with a turnover of approximately £7m pa and 80 skilled property consultants, DBK has positioned itself as a leading service provider in its field.
Nokia Siemens Networks
Cambridge-based OpenCloud Limited, which supplies real-time application server software for next-generation convergent telecomms services, has received £4 million investment from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) – one of the largest telecom hardware, software and services companies in the world – plus an additional £1m from its existing investors Advent Venture Partners and No 8 Ventures. In addition to the investment by NSN,
OpenCloud has secured an OEM agreement that will see its Rhino Telecom Application Server and Service Interaction Server becoming integrated into NSN’s charge@once unified product suite - a modular, highly scalable and flexible convergent charging solution. For the last two years, OpenCloud and NSN have enjoyed an increasingly successful working partnership securing 13 joint customers in that time.
The investment will be used by OpenCloud to further global expansion. It will also allow OpenCloud to extend its partner and application portfolios, as well as assist in the development of future products. The cash boost comes at a time when the market demand for OpenCloud’s Telecoms Application Server and Service Broker products is increasing.In the last year, OpenCloud’s successful growth has exceeded projections. Revenues have tripled year-on-year and the company has acquired 13 customer wins in the last year alone. OpenCloud’s client roster includes some of the telecom industry’s biggest players, such as BT, Vodafone, and T Mobile amongst its customer base of over 30 mobile and fixed network telecom operators.
CEO Jeff Gordon said: “We are continuing with our quest to open up the telecoms service layer, to provide compelling technology to the expanding community of telecoms software developers and deliver better value and increased innovation. “
"To be receiving an investment from NSN is a strong endorsement of OpenCloud’s products and strategy and it will help to support our continuing rapid growth."
“This move elevates our relationship with NSN to that of a truly strategic partner and will enable us to address the considerable Service Layer and Converged Charging opportunities in the market.”
Founded in New Zealand, OpenCloud is now headquartered in Cambridge with R & D, engineering and support in New Zealand and Spain and branch offices in the Singapore and Jakarta.
GE Capital
We assisted with the dramatic turnaround in the prospects of specialist food importer Visual Foods.
Visual (formerly Vision Seafoods), one of the UK’s largest importers of warm water prawns with a turnover of £22m, together with sister company Dragon Delight unexpectedly found itself in administration due to financial problems at its holding company.
During a frantic few weeks of activity, Regent Assay helped to raise a £4.75m working capital facility, which together with funds from a private investor enabled the management team to acquire the business from the administrators. In a comparatively short time, Regent Assay helped ensure that Visual and Dragon could continue to trade, protecting both business and employees.
Maven Capital Partners
Established for over 110 years and based in Wolverhampton, £20m turnover Deritend is a national provider of engineering maintenance services to a range of industries including Power, Water, Food and Beverage.
The Group provides 24 hour, 365 day support from its network of 12 regional service centres across the UK. Like many businesses Deritend has been impacted by the effects of the recession and needed an injection of capital to strengthen its balance sheet. We quickly matched Deritend’s requirements to the objectives of the Government’s Capital for Enterprise Fund managed in the Midlands by Maven Capital Partners.
The fund is a form of equity investment and is available to sound businesses with existing cashflows and genuine growth potential that are currently unable to access the funding they need from traditional sources. In this instance we raised £2m on Deritend’s behalf directly from Maven.
Barclays Ventures
AWS Group, the UK’s leading independent Electronic Manufacturing Solutions (EMS) provider has secured a £5.5M equity investment from the private equity arm of Barclays Bank plc, Barclays Ventures.
The finance will be used to fund growth, both organically and by further focused acquisitions in the UK. AWS will also widen its footprint internationally with a targeted presence in South East Asia.
During the last three years AWS has broadened its manufacturing capabilities and implemented a fully integrated group supply chain solution. Today the business comprises four UK based operations supported by a lower cost manufacturing solution based in northern Slovakia. It employs 420 staff, and has annual sales in excess of £40 million.
Comments AWS CEO Paul Deehan: “The investment serves to underwrite the Board's determination to continue a path of strategic as well as organic growth within the electronics manufacturing services sector and to strengthen its capacity to achieve its aims. The desire to continue to provide our customers with a flexible service of the highest quality at competitive prices remains our number one priority.”
Core Capital
Core Capital, the specialist private equity partnership, announced today that they had completed an investment in Kelway, making this the fifth investment completed so far in 2006.
Core led the £5 million replacement capital investment in Kelway, a fast growing IT hardware and software reseller based in the UK, which focuses on supplying to companies in the SME market. Kelway is one of the UK’s leading resellers of computing and networking hardware and software to leading corporate and public sector organisations across the UK. Kelway also provides a range of related value added IT services.
Kelway has an established market niche supplying companies where the service requirement is as important as the hardware itself, and Kelway has developed a model based upon serving the needs of this particular client base. Kelway aims to support the IT procurement function within companies that typically lack the internal resources to manage this complex and business critical need.
The company has various locations in the UK but a vast majority of the 62 employees are based in the London office. Founded in 1990, Kelway has grown from £25 million revenues two years ago to some £55 million in 2007, while the UK hardware’s CAGR over the same period was only 5.9% (IDC).
Kelway also supplies packaged software and is an accredited partner of all the major packaged software vendors including Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, Citrix and Veritas.
Commenting on the transaction, Walid Fakhry said, “Kelway represents an attractive opportunity for the Core funds to invest in an established yet fast growing business, with a large installed base and an interesting business model. It’s service-led approach has allowed Kelway to support its clients growing IT needs and achieve good margins. This continues to be well received in a market typically dominated by low-cost, low value added suppliers, who fail to support SME businesses and instead usually target larger organisations.”
Phil Doye, Managing Director of Kelway commented “Working with Core, who add a lot of value to Kelway, represents a good opportunity to support the continued growth of the business, both organically and through acquisition. The deal process highlighted the supportive approach that they adopt and I look forward to working closely with Core over the coming years.”
Xchanging
Regent Assay were lead financial advisers to University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust on the formation of a new HR and payroll business. UHB, which runs the Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak hospitals, treats over half a million patients per annum and employs more than 6,500 people in the Midlands. Its existing payroll function currently serves 10% of NHS employees across the UK.
This public/ private partnership with Xchanging is intending to use UHB’s existing platform to develop a market leading HR and payroll business across the NHS. Xchanging is one of the world’s leading business processing services companies.
Lloyds TSB Group
Regent Assay advised Aston Manor Brewery Company Limited on its fundraising for a purchase of own shares from a substantial minority shareholder. Aston Manor is the third largest producer of cider in the UK market, and also owns the Highgate Brewery and a chain of tenanted public houses.
The deal value is undisclosed and the funding was provided by the Lloyds TSB Group.
