Dealmakers at Grant Thornton across the Midlands are reporting a bumper harvest of transactions both at home and abroad with deal values totalling £260m over the last six months.
In August the Midlands team provided financial and tax due diligence on the acquisition of Newark based line marking specialist Riggotts & Co by Tenants Consolidated for an undisclosed sum. This followed hard on the heels of advising Lincolnshire headquartered Belvoir Lettings Plc on its acquisition of regional estate agency Newton Fallowell for £6.3m and measurement systems supplier HORIBA’s £83.1m acquisition of MIRA, the provider of research services to the automotive, railway and aerospace sectors.
The team has also advised on a flurry of IT sector deals, providing due diligence on the acquisition of security software value-added distributor Wick Hill by Warwickshire-based Rigby Private Equity, and the investment by Rigby Group plc in data connectivity business Fluidata. Grant Thornton also advised Maven Capital Partners on its investment in Flow Communications, a specialist IT integrator.
Cross-border deals continued to drive corporate finance activity, with Far Eastern acquisitions of UK-based companies still figuring strongly, despite fears of a slowdown in Chinese growth rates. During the period the team advised the shareholders of trailer leasing company Grayrentals Plc on its disposal to Hong Kong International Aviation Leasing Company; Miniclip, one of Europe’s largest independent mobile and online game publishers on the sale of a majority stake to Tencent Holdings, a provider of internet services in China and South Korean-parented Doosan Industrial Vehicle UK on its acquisition of Rushlift Limited which has six depots in the UK including in Hinckley, Leicestershire.
Mustafa Abdulhusein, head of Grant Thornton’s corporate finance team in the Midlands, said: “We’re continuing to see an increasing appetite for market-leading businesses in the region from acquisitive overseas buyers. Over the last six months the local team has advised on deals where complex regulation and approval processes needed to be managed carefully and where our ability to provide transaction tax advice across multiple jurisdictions was key.
“People are in the mind-set to do deals and there’s more willingness to pay tomorrow’s price today for the right asset. That’s partly about good business fundamentals in the UK, but also a reflection of the amount of capital looking to be deployed into particular types of deals, which is driving up prices. Buyers are prepared to pay a premium for quality assets.”
Paul Kithoray of the Transaction Advisory Services team at Grant Thornton’s Leicester office added: “Deal volumes have shown a notable increase in the first half of 2015, with the technology, telecoms, healthcare, recruitment and training sectors being particularly active. We have seen little evidence of this momentum abating and the pipeline of deals is strong.”
Nationally, Grant Thornton is also reporting a significant upturn in activity, highlighting a post-election boost that has helped drive a busy summer in the deals market. The firm, rated number one in the UK by Experian Corpfin for the last three years on the basis of deal volumes, completed 18 transactions with a total value of £426m around the country over June, July and August. Some 39 per cent were cross border deals, facilitated by Grant Thornton’s global network.
Grant Thornton’s East Midlands office is in Leicester and has approximately 130 staff providing business and financial advice across Corporate and Personal Tax, audit and assurance, employer solutions, corporate finance, and sustainability, to organisations across the East Midlands.
