36
OF THE YEAR (UNDER £25m) AWARD
DEAL
SPONSORED BY THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE WINNER GURALP SYSTEMS
Above: The Guralp deal management and advisers, and Mark Durden-Smith Right: Tony Wall and Dr Cansun Guralp with the deal team
The first of the two Deals of the Year sponsored by The Business Magazine, was in the lower mid-market under £25m category.
Three key deals which had already figured in the evening’s headlines had been selected to vie for the title and it was up to the audience to vote for their favourite in just 20 seconds.
Heading the pack for the most talked about deal of the night – thanks to some witty banter from Mark Durden-Smith – was the £20 million Guralp Systems deal.
Dr Cansun Guralp and Tony Wall from Guralp Systems were in the audience to hear a brief history of the disposal/MBI of the company to Primary Capital. Located in Aldermaston, Guralp is the world’s leading designer and manufacturer of complete broadband seismic systems.
Grant Thornton advised the vendors, while Osborne Clarke, Pitmans and Olswang provided legal advice, and HMT, Armstrong TS and Marsh worked on due diligence.
The second of the shortlisted deals also had the Grant Thornton touch, this time the MBO by Kerridge Commercial Systems from ADP, a Hungerford-based
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software business which also has overseas operations in South Africa, Ireland and the Netherlands. The deal was described as a “complex carve-out of trade and assets“ and involved a number of local advisers.
Duncan Lamb led the deal, with funding to the tune of £9m provided by NVM and HSBC. Osborne Clarke, Eversheds and Shoosmiths provided legal advice to the various parties, while Baker Tilly and Latitude undertook due diligence.
Also making a bid for the audience’s attention was the £4m Box-it Data Management deal, with funding provided by HSBC and Octopus Ventures. Winchester-based Box-it, which offers businesses a comprehensive range of document management services, acquired Stortext FM, a leader in electronic document archiving, in February 2010.
Also working on the deal were advisers RSM Tenon and Carabid Consultants, while Paris Smith and Marriott Harrison handled the legal complexities and due diligence was carried out by BDO and CIL.
With Durden-Smith giving the audience their voting countdown it was the briefest of periods before the Guralp Systems name
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MAY 2011
was revealed as a very popular winner.
A thrilled Tony Wall went to the stage to collect the award and told the audience: “This has been a great deal for us. We have had a lot of support from everyone, many of whom are here in the room tonight – so thank you very much.“
His words were echoed by Adam Dowdney from Pitmans, who said: “Guralp Systems is a fantastic business and we were delighted to be involved in the deal. During the transaction we got to know the management team and Dr Guralp very well and continue to act for the company going forward.
“It was quite a complex deal, requiring some innovative approaches to a number of issues that arose during the process, but what was especially pleasing was that it was a really good example of a deal being done by local advisers within the Thames Valley deal community which was effected through the expertise, clear communication and teamwork of all parties involved.“
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