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dealmaking roundtable
This year, Q1 deal volume was 50% higher than the same period last year and deal value was 96% higher. Dealmaking in the Thames Valley is buoyant and steadily growing – isn’t it? The Business Magazine and BCMS Corporate, the UK's market leader in the sale of privately owned companies, invited some experienced dealmakers to gather at the Madejski Stadium, Reading to discuss ...
The growing demands of modern dealmaking Participants
Steve Anstey: Executive director, BCMS
Leon Arnold: Partner, head of corporate, Henmans Freeth solicitors Greg Norman : Investor, Business Growth Fund Andy Hunt: Commercial director, BCMS Doug Lingafelter CEO, Jacqueline Webb & Co
Chris Roberts: Transaction director, corporate transactions team, future Williams & Glyn team, Royal Bank of Scotland
David Rolfe: Partner, NVM Private Equity
Charles Thorburn: Co-founder, finance adviser CreditSquare
David Murray: The Business Magazine managing editor and publisher, chaired the discussion
Lined up to debate: the Roundtable team John Burbedge reports the Roundtable highlights
How is the deals market at the moment?
Steve Anstey of dealmaker BCMS agreed that the Thames Valley was vibrant. “Our 2015 first half was over 40% up on 2014, and if anything, the market is now accelerating for us with dealflows and completions increasing. I expect us to be ahead of the market by the end of the year. That’s growth across all sectors too, although manufacturing and engineering have been very strong for us, along with wholesale and distribution, plus healthcare.”
RBS banker Chris Roberts: “The market has been improving since 2013-14, but the number of deals we’ve done this year, from SMEs to corporates, has already eclipsed 2014.” Corporate activity had continued to grow from around 2010, but in the past 12-18 months there has been a noticeable up-tick in SME deals.
Private equity specialist David Rolfe highlighted “very busy dealmaking in 2014,“ and felt the second half of 2015 would be stronger than the first for NVM Private Equity “... which is a bold statement, bearing in mind the fantastic first half stats just quoted, but we are
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seeing a more activity now than we did earlier this year.”
Greg Norman of BGF (Business Growth Fund), supported by five main bank groups – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Standard Chartered – has up to £2.5 billion available to help SMEs through long-term equity investments. “We are involved with around 100 portfolio companies. We did 33 deals nationally last year and we have completed 21 so far this year, so we are set to do more this year. We assist all sectors except regulated financial services and property development, and tend to do technology deals locally, and healthcare has been good for us nationally.”
Legal adviser Leon Arnold: “We have a nice perspective of the UK deals market because we have a number of offices around the country – and it’s busy.” Henman Freeth’s Oxford office was reporting Thames Valley activity as “ahead of budget, with a lot of transactions set to close in the coming quarter.” Birmingham, Leeds and London were also activity hotspots. “We are busier than last year, which was a very busy year for us. We are looking to recruit.”
Leon Arnold
Andy Hunt of BCMS added: “We are regularly doing a lot of deals and that’s consistent across all sizes of business and sectors.”
Finance adviser Charles Thorburn: “Two years ago 85% of inquiries were about growth capital refinancing, whereas now 60-70% are corporate transactions, which confirms what everyone has been saying about the market.
Anstey: “Our offer accepted pipeline is back to pre-credit crunch levels in volume terms which has to be an optimistic market indicator.”
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – OCTOBER 2015
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