Grant Thornton


Building your business with private equity


COVID-19 has changed the rules – access to markets has been restricted, consumer behaviour has been modified and the outlook is uncertain. However, if you’ve managed to tough it out this far, now could be a great time to seek private equity (PE) funding in order to fast track growth in your business or alternatively de-risk your personal investment portfolio, but you must get the timing right.


Growing your business We’ve been talking to a lot of CEOs over the last few months to gath- er their perspective on recent events. One of the things we’ve been most impressed with is how quickly many have adapted to the new circumstances. In the longer term, the winners will be those who do just that. Tey may come out bruised, but will emerge in a market which is a lot less cluttered with competitors and that may offer new exciting opportunities for growth. With the increase in digitisation plus smarter working, the most agile businesses are likely to come out on


Mike Hughes Corporate


Finance Director at Grant Thornton


top. For example, a luxury consumer product man- ufacturer we know has switched to producing air sanitisers. Te owner plans eventually to go back to the original product portfolio but he was quick to match his skills and resources to the needs of the market.


Another CEO talks about having recently joined


a long-established business where remote working was out of the question pre-COVID-19. Te lock- down meant that suddenly his entire workforce had to work from home but, despite this, the company continued to operate without issue. He sees this as a great opportunity to reset and change how things are done, modernising processes without compro- mising the business. For many businesses the ‘new normal’ will


present plenty of opportunity to grow - and quickly. Tis could be through the acquisition of a failing competitor or stepping into a new market that would previously have been impenetrable. But in order to achieve this, businesses will often require a significant injection of funding – which may not be available from a traditional bank or through the cashflows of the business. For ambitious sharehold- ers in this position, now is a great time to consider private equity as a route to securing additional funding that will enable the business to make a significant step change.


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ALL THINGS BUSINESS


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