A Lancashire family-owned care home group has been sold by its owners to a Greater Manchester-based healthcare services provider in a deal supported by Brabners.
Read morePrivate Equity Investments
Legal support throughout the private equity investment process — helping you to negotiate the right investments with the right investors and secure appropriate terms.
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Our corporate lawyers support management teams, shareholders and investors to navigate the complexities of private equity transactions — securing the right deal for you now and well into the future.
Private equity can have a transformative effect on a business — allowing the management team to buy into ownership through MBO and MBI transactions, providing existing shareholders with a route for succession and liquidity and giving investors the opportunity to realise returns from fast-growing private companies.
Yet private equity transactions always involve a delicate balancing act when it comes to managing shareholder dynamics with the expectations that can come into play during the life of an investment.
We advise the full spectrum of clients including private equity funds, management teams, angel investors, corporates, banks and mezzanine debt providers on the complete range of private equity transactions including IBOs, MBOs, MBIs, BIMBOs, development capital, secondary and tertiary buyouts and exits, as well as providing general portfolio advice.
Our dedicated venture capital team also supports in closing investments into start-ups and high-growth companies.
Our services for investors and management teams
We provide pragmatic and practical advice and always keep the commercial context of the deal in mind to help you meet your objectives.
We help investors to negotiate terms — ensuring that expectations around performance and returns are balanced with the need to maintain strong relationships with the management team on the ground. We similarly ensure that there’s a balance between your ability to participate and add value with the need to protect your investment if things don’t quite go as planned.
We also advise management teams and private equity sponsors on the full cycle of private equity investment — from advising on the initial acquisition and platform establishment to offering banking support to provide leverage for transactions, advising on bolt-on acquisitions, establishing management incentivisation schemes, helping clients to navigate issues through the life of investment and ultimately supporting with liquidity, including trade exits, secondary buy-outs and recapitalisation transactions.
Deal Advisory x legal expertise — a unique proposition
Our unique, multidisciplinary team combines the legal expertise of our corporate lawyers with the specialist accountancy capabilities of our Deal Advisory financiers to provide pragmatic and commercial advice throughout the full lifecycle of private equity transactions.
With broad knowledge and understanding of the funding market, our deal advisors specialise in creating deals and bringing parties together — generating funding opportunities for our investor clients and network.
We have a strong track record in negotiating and securing the right investments from the right investors and agreeing appropriate terms while maintaining positive relationships with investee management teams.
We’re one of the few firms outside London to assist clients in forming, investing in and managing private equity funds. We act for many private equity houses including Omni Partners, River Capital, BGF and Mercia Asset Management.
We also advise an ever-increasing number of corporates and their management teams in taking private equity investment, including those at ParkVia, NorthWest Ehealth, Gas Tag, Red Flag Alert, Bikmo, Evoke Creative, Airfinity and Sentric Music.
Our approach to private equity investments
At the outset, we take time to understand your business objectives and tailor our support to help you deliver them — from project inception through to successful completion and beyond. Throughout the process, we act as your ‘critical friend’ to ensure that your business interests are protected and your expectations are managed.
Transparency and efficiency are central to any successful investment. To streamline the deal and ensure that all parties are on the same page at the outset, we look to implement a detailed (and fully negotiated) equity term sheet. This sets out the key investment terms relevant to the transaction — saving time and money while minimising the scope for disagreements to arise later in the process when the parties are focused on getting the deal done. The term sheet will also serve as a useful aide-memoire following completion, so you won’t have to delve into the transaction documents whenever you have a query.
We always help to coordinate the efforts of all your advisers — both internally across our various specialist teams and externally across your accountants, tax advisers and any other third party advisers — to ensure that everyone is working cohesively towards a successful outcome. We also consider the wider value and opportunities that your investment deal brings to your business and add value wherever we can.
Expert corporate lawyers for private equity investments
Our private equity team is led by experienced corporate lawyer Daniel Hayhurst, who handles a wealth of complex, multi-million-pound private equity-backed buyouts as well as development capital and venture capital investments and high-profile disposals. Clients describe Daniel as “excellent and really easy to work with”, “readily available and responds rapidly to all communication” and “combines a strong commercial awareness of the underlying transaction with excellent and succinct drafting”.
Daniel works alongside fellow corporate lawyer Jon Close — who has a strong reputation for being user-friendly, straight-talking, pragmatic and solutions-driven in his deal approach — and our Head of Banking and Finance Andrew O’Mahony. A member of The Legal 500’s Hall of Fame, Andrew brings a strong track record in private equity transactions and has worked with many investors to ensure that they take a strategic approach to investing in companies during various stages of development. Clients describe him as an excellent project manager — focused on getting the job done efficiently and cost-effectively with great attention to detail.
Deal highlights
Rainham Industrial Services — investor buy-out
Advising the shareholders of Rainham Industrial Services — a leading UK provider of industrial installation, maintenance and refurbishment services — on the sale of the company to an affiliate of global private equity house H.I.G. Capital and the shareholders' re-investment in the new group.
Read moreAirfinity — investment raise
Advising Airfinity — a provider of predictive health intelligence and data analytics — on a £5m raise from Gresham House and subsequent £3m Series B raise from Gresham and existing investors.
Barons Contract Furniture — MBO
Advising on the management buy-out of Barons Contract Furniture, backed by River Capital and Arbuthnot Latham.
BGF — exit and reinvestment
Advising BGF on its exit from Anexsys — a leading eDisclosure and digital forensics provider — to US private equity-backed Xact Data Discovery and its reinvestment into Hobs Group.
Bikmo — Series A investment round
Advising Bikmo — a provider of microservices and API ecosystems that's revolutionising the cycle and e-mobility insurance market — on its Series A investment round, led by Puma Private Equity.
Evoke Creative — multi-million-pound investment
Advising Evoke Creative — a provider of digital kiosks and services to the retail and hospitality sectors — on a multi-million-pound investment from BGF.
Mercia Asset Management — investment
Advising Mercia Asset Management in relation to its investment in Relative Insight — a spin-out from Lancaster University that uses technology and data to help brands interact with their audiences.
MSIF — syndicated investment
Acting for MSIF on a £2.25m syndicated investment in Springpod — an EdTech platform where students can experience the world of work and university before they apply.
Omni Partners — acquisitions
Acting for Omni Partners on its acquisition of SME HCI Limited (trading as Vivup) and Compass CHC Limited.
Red Flag Alert — Series A investment round
Advising Red Flag Alert — a business intelligence software provider — on its Series A investment round, led by Foresight Private Equity.
Sentric Music — company sale
Advising BGF, management and other shareholders of Sentric Music — a provider of technology solutions to artists and songwriters to collect royalties — on the sale of the company to Utopia Music.
Traditum — Series A investment
Advising Traditum and Mercia on their syndicated Series A investment into Arquella, a provider of technology solutions to the care sector.
“It was a pleasure working with Daniel Hayhurst, Olayanju Phillips and the team at Brabners on the Series A equity investment by Puma Investments into Bikmo. We are very pleased with the quality of advice, in-depth knowledge and responsiveness demonstrated by the corporate team, who advised us on and negotiated the transaction documents throughout the deal and managed the process from start to finish. Their assistance was invaluable in bringing the funding round to a successful close.”
Louise Towers, CFO — Bikmo
“The team at Brabners led by Jon Close was a pleasure to deal with and really supported us throughout the deal process. They were always accessible and very responsive. Their pragmatic, straightforward and user-friendly approach ensured that our deal was completed on time and within budget. I would wholeheartedly recommend them.”
Managing Director, ParkVia (on its investment from Mercia Asset Management)
“We were delighted with the work of the Brabners’ team, Mark Rathbone and Daniel Hayhurst were excellent, really easy to work with, we couldn’t have been in better hands.”
CEO, Gas Tag (on its investment from Waterland)
“We were delighted with the high standards of the legal advice, service and speed of execution from the Brabners’ team.”
Management team, Airfinity
Related insights
Our specialist EOT team guided MiM Systems — a leading provider of time and attendance management systems — through the employee ownership (EO) process.
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We advised an optical lens and coatings manufacturer — which distributes its products globally — on its transition to employee ownership.
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