Hewitsons at heart of corporate deals worth hundreds of millions

Our corporate team is going from strength to strength having completed deals totaling hundreds of millions of pounds over the last year.

With teams operating out of Cambridge and Northampton, we have been involved in a wide range of deals, concerning exciting products such as an innovative spinal disc replacement and a mass market movie-making tool.

Already renowned in the region as “one of the main players”, the team has continued to build on its success with a range of work across a variety of industry sectors and, in particular, involvement in an increasing number of acquisitions.

John Dix, who continues to successfully combine his leading role in the corporate team with his position as the firm’s managing partner, said: “Hewitsons experienced its most successful year to date in terms of turnover and profitability in 2007 and much of this was down to developing the core corporate section of the business.

“Looking back at 2007 the corporate and commercial team dealt with around 80 transactions covering a spread of M&A, private equity, and public markets work, with a total value of £300 million.”

The team’s reputation in the field of venture capital funding is widely acknowledged with a proven track record of acting for technology companies. The market conditions strengthened during 2007 and there was a healthy increase in the number of early stage investment by business angels and smaller funds which should provide a steady stream of work over the coming years.

One significant deal involved our Cambridge team successfully advising Ranier Technology Ltd, the producer of an innovative spinal disc replacement to complete a £8 million investment by a syndicate.

An eventful last 12-months has also seen the Cambridge team provide development capital for Short Fuze Ltd, the producers of mass market movie-making tool Moviestorm™, and Digital Healthcare, the developers of advanced medical imaging equipment. Early stage deals included fundings for Redbite Solutions Ltd, Cambridge Visual Networks Ltd and Isentropic Ltd.

In 2007 the market conditions for M&A work started to come off the peak levels experienced in 2006 but the changes in Capital Gains Tax announced to take effect in April 2008 have ensured that M&A has remained a major part of the team's workload. The Northampton team alone completed more than 40 transactions with a total value in excess of £150 million.

Notable deals involving the Cambridge office included the purchase of leading natural ventilation company Monodraught Limited by VKR, the Danish group best known for producing Velux windows, and the acquisition of Online Coding by London Stock Exchange listed Domino Printing Sciences Plc, a market leader in ink jet printing.

Over in Northampton the team helped national motor dealership Perrys Motor Sales Limited complete the acquisition of the Vantage Group of Companies.

The Cambridge team also handled significant acquisitions for Arkex, Avro Industries Plc, Beaphar BV, 1-Spatial and Camlab. It was involved in a significant number of sizeable company sales, traditionally a strong part of Hewitsons practice, with the order book heading into the second quarter of 2008 looking extremely healthy.

Other deals have included the sale of the Aqua Group, which has an established reputation in the building services sector. The sale to pan European engineering group Imtech NV was completed in April 2007.

The team has also handled company sales in relation to Envisional Solutions Ltd, a provider of brand protection services; detection product specialist Levy Hill Group Ltd, parent company of Applied Scintillation Technology and water treatment specialists JK Environmental. Instructions were received for new client Green Cathedral Plc in relation to the sale of it’s digital marketing subsidiary GCDM.

Work in the AIM market has seen the Cambridge team, headed-up by James Lawrence, involved in the £2 million institutional placing for LiDCO Group, a capital reduction for Amino Technologies Plc and work with Choices UK. The team advised on further equity fundraising by Intamac Systems Limited. They also advised Powerlase Limited on the reorganization of its debt funding.

Our Northampton team continues to be the largest in the town and its expertise and strength in depth, together with its specialist support from elsewhere within the firm, enables it to act for a broad range of clients, from listed PLC’s such as Travis Perkins and RPC Group, to major owner-managed businesses such as Perrys Motor Sales Limited, on a wide range of high quality corporate transactions.