Gambit Corporate Finance LLP has celebrated its three year anniversary in Birmingham with a run of successful deal completions.
Gambit’s Birmingham team, led by partner Adrian Jones, has completed four deals in the last four weeks. Adrian Jones said that he is hoping the high number of deal completions for Gambit in such a short space of time will also be reflective of a more sustained period of deal flow in general in the Midlands market.
“The market remains challenging but we hope that our current high level of activity reflects also how the deal market is starting to move – we are certainly seeing more activity in the most recent past than we have in several years and our deal pipeline looking forward is very strong. Getting deals across the line is still tough, but there appears to be a growing willingness for buyer, investor and seller to come together rather than keep their polar opinions of company value, which has been one of the key reasons behind the relative market lethargy over the last five years.”
The deals included the purchase of Endless’ stake in Acenta, the sale of Greenwoods Communications to ICD and the sale of Rail Order to Alan Dick Communications.
Headquartered in Willenhall, West Midlands, Acenta Steel in 2012 achieved turnover of £82 million across its six sites in the UK with 343 employees. Gambit advised on the original purchase only two years ago from Niagara Lasalle Corporation, Indiana, and has now advised on what will be one of the most significant industrial deals in the Midlands in 2013. Endless secured a 5.7 times money return in just a two year period.
Greenwoods Communications is a leading independent network solutions provider to the communications industry based in Coleshill, specialising in telecom network build and roll-out. It supplies a range of telecom infrastructure services for network operators and OEMs, and serves the fixed line, wireless and data centre markets. Its turnover last year was £39 million. Gambit advised on its sale to ICD.
Rail Order, based in the East Midlands, supplies products and services into rail operators and was sold to Alan Dick Communications.
The fourth transaction upon which Gambit has advised is a West Midlands specialist automotive manufacturer, raising a significant sum of development capital which will provide it with the opportunity to accelerate its growth over the coming years from its already significant £10 million turnover.
“Hopefully we will complete another couple of significant deals within the next six weeks, which will really cap a tremendous start for us to the first half of 2013.”
Gambit Corporate Finance LLP has offices in Birmingham, London and Cardiff.
