Dear Reader,
You are receiving this mail every week as we see you as a key partner and we look forward to continuing to enjoy our journey with you over the decades ahead.
Please find below this week’s newsletter covering the latest M&A, company performance, fundraisings and executive moves.
Ourselves in Renatus and our primary sponsor partners Fitzgerald Power, Bank Of Ireland, ByrneWallace and Sunday Times were overwhelmed and grateful for all the support for The Real Deal event last week at Goffs.
Our nine panelists;
Breege O’Donoghue, Donagh Kelly, Nikki Evans, David McKernan, Helen Tynan, Liam Sheedy, Alan Cox, Mary McKenna and Bobby Healy, so honourably gave their time for free in the spirit of giving back and inspiring fellow entrepreneurs. A snippet of each speaker’s contribution can be seen in the highlights video below (speakers are featured in the order above).
The event booked out with over 1k registrants and the majority of whom were SMEs who were curious to learn.
We hope to thank everybody individually who contributed over the next week and there are so many. We are in the process of producing a high quality highlights video and in the meantime we have produced a ten minute video of what we believe are the highlights here:
The Real Deal 2019 – Speaker Highlights
Focus Ireland – Shine a Light Campaign
As we announced as part of the The Real Deal, next Friday the 18th of October the Real Deal sponsors will be sleeping out in Dublin as part of Focus Ireland’s ‘Shine a Light’ campaign.
‘Shine a Light’ aims to raise funds and awareness for Ireland’s growing homelessness crisis. Focus Ireland reaches people on the brink of homelessness and makes a real and lasting difference to those individuals, families and children currently living in emergency accommodation.
To support Focus Ireland and the Real Deal team in their campaign against homelessness, we would be extremely grateful if you could please donate through the below link.
Deal Details: Kingspan has acquired Building Solutions Limited, a UK-based manufacturer and distributor of construction materials for a reported £37.5m.
Kingspan, which began trading in Co. Cavan in 1965 has grown to be a force in the construction industry. In recent times, the business has transitioned from an insulation specialist to offer a much more rounded offer. This acquisition is the latest in a series of bolt-on acuisitions which will expand the business’ offering. Turnover for Kingspan Group PLC in FY17 was c. €3.7bn with EBITDA of c. €442.3m.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: Kingspan spent a reported c. €470m on 8 acquisitions in 2018 and has been busy this year again. Kingspan has reaped the rewards of acquisitive growth in its history and looks set to continue this strategy. This deal comes at a time when most businesses appear to be cautious about large investments in the UK or on UK dependent businesses for obvious reasons. However, the greatest value can often come from being courageous when others are fearful.
Source: Irish Independent
Deal Details: Altify, a San Jose headquartered company with offices in Dublin, has been acquired by Upland Software, a Nasdaq-listed cloud-based enterprise work management software company.
Altify, led by CEO Anthony Reynolds, is a provider of a customer revenue optimisation cloud solution that has been built on Salesforce and aims to improve the effectiveness of overall sales team’s execution with guided selling. Upland paid $84m in cash to acquire Altify, $59m of which was funded through Upland’s revolving credit facility.
Post-integration, Altify is expected to deliver annual revenue of $24m and Adjusted EBITDA of at least $10.8m.
Advisers: Colm Rafferty and William Darmody of Maples acted as legal advisers to Altifly. Piper Jaffray acted as financial advisor to Altify
Renatus Comment: Strategically, the acquisition seems like a good fit for Upland as Altify’s customer revenue optimisation offering is a strong complement to its existing portfolio of solutions which include RFP automation, Sales Proposal Automation and many others.
Source: Business Wire
Deal Details: Waterford-based Eishtec has been acquired by global digital services and consulting firm Infosys for an undisclosed sum.
Eishtec, a customer contact centre operator, was founded in 2011 and has expanded rapidly since. The business employs 1,400 in the country and CEO Heather Reynolds is expected to stay with the business post-acqusition. Eishtec recorded revenue of c. €36.2m in FY17 and has net assets of c. €8.4m.
Infosys is a global player in the teachnology consulting and business process management process space.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: Eishtec and Infosys serve similar end markets and a lot of the same customers. For Eishtec, this deal will add scale and open doors that comes with a global consulting giant and for Infosys it will deepen their local market expertise.
It is a really positive story for Waterford created from the ashes of the Talk Talk closure.
Source: Irish Times
Deal Details: AMCS, the world’s leading supplier of integrated software and vehicle technology for the waste and recycling sector, has acquired PieterBas Automatisering.
AMCS which is led by Jimmy Martin has made 11 acquisitions in the past 8 years and has experienced strong financial growth on the back of it. Latest financials are FY16 which show revenue of c. €35.6m which doubled from FY13. AMCS has offices in Europe, Australia and North America.
PierterBas is a similar company which specialises in software for the waste and recyling industry in the Netherlands.
Advisers: A team of Colm Rafferty and Keelin Gavagan from Maples acted for AMCS.
Renatus Comment: We have celebrated the AMCS story before and wont apologise for doing so again. Founded in Limerick by Jimmy Martin and Austin Ryan, it continues to be managed from Limerick and appears to be en route to being a Unicorn.
Source: AMCS Press Release
Deal Details: Dawn Farms has acquired German cooked meats business Haas.
Dawn Farms is a family owned business that has been supplying cooked meat ingredients and fermented and dried sausage to Ireland and beyond since 1985. Today it employs 1,000+ people and services over 44 markets globally. The business is currently undergoing a European expansion strategy under which this acquisition falls. Dawn’s parent Arrow Group Limited reported revenue of c. €551.8m in FY18 and EBITDA of c.€34.4m.
Haas is a mid-sized, family-owned cooked and fermented protein supplier with focus on the pizza sector in which Dawn Farms is the largest in Europe.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: With this acquisition, Dawn immediately gains a foothold in this area of Germany and gains invaluable local expertise, two key benefits of successful acquisitions that would be much more difficult to attain organically.
Source: Dawn Farms Press Release
Deal Details: KB Associates (KBA) receives investment from ECI Partners to support the next stage of KBA’s growth. The value of the investment has not been disclosed.
Founded in 2003, Dublin-headquartered KBA specialises in the provision of management company, governance and compliance services to investment funds and asset managers.
With offices in Dublin, London, New York and Cayman Islands, KBA has 60 consultants and with over 230 asset management firms including some of the world’s biggest managers, supporting investment funds with assets under management in excess of €225bn.
Advisers: The Clearwater International team, led by John Curtin and John Sheridan, acted for ECI.
Deloitte’s M&A advisory team led by Jan Fitzell provided lead advisory services for KB Associates. Deloitte’s Debt & Capital Advisory and Transaction Services teams also provided staple debt and vendor assist services as part of the transaction.
Source: KB Associates Press Release
Deal Details: Newspaper company Formpress Publishing has been cleared to acquire The Midland Tribune and The Tullamore Tribune by CCPC. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
The company also owns the Limerick Leader, the Kilkenny People, the Longford Leader, the Leinster Express, the Leinster Leader, the Tipperary Star, the Dundalk Democrat, the Donegal Democrat, the Leitrim Observer and the Nationalist in Clonmel.
Formpress is 100 per cent owned by Iconic Newspapers, controlled by Malcolm Denmark, which paid Johnston Press €8.7 million for the Irish titles in April 2014.
Following the CCPC’s approval, the parties will now have to submit a notification to the Minister for Communications Richard Bruton, who will assess the merger separately with a focus on media plurality.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: We commented on the sale of shares in KFM last week and we’d expect a lot of regional media assets to shift over the next year or two.
Source: CCPC
Deal Details: Pest Pulse Limited, a pest control start-up headquartered in Dublin, has been acquired by ServiceMaster for an undisclosed sum.
The company which was founded in 2017 by Brian Monaghan, Tim O’Toole, John O’Gara and Wassim Magnin, provides internet-connected pest traps to commercial customers.
Clients include international brands such as Five Guys, Brewdog, CRH and Cafe Leon
ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc. is a leading provider of termite and pest control, cleaning and restoration services in both the residential and commercial markets, operating through an extensive service network of more than 8,000 company-owned locations and franchise and license agreements.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: This looks like a premature sell-off but founder, CEO and majority shareholder Brian Monaghan writes a great blog on the motive for the transaction and how he is excited about growing it with Service Master. A must read for any potential vendor.
Source: Pest Pulse
Deal Details: Corporate Care Relocations (“CCR”) have announced the acquisition of The Relocation Bureau for an undisclosed sum.
The two businesses are long established in Ireland and offer similar services to clients. CCR was founded in 1997 and looks after individuals whomust relocate for business. The Relocation Bureau, founded in 1990, is the longest established in Ireland and offers a range of services to support companies and their employees relocating to Ireland and overseas.
The Relocation Bureau was founded and run by Francine O’Byrne who will take a step back post-acquisition. The business had net assets of €164k as of FY17.
Advisers: None mentioned
Source: Corporate Care Relocations Press Release
Deal Details: BCD Engineering has sold a majority stake in its business to Italian-based Masco Group for an undisclosed sum.
BCD, which have been operating out of Charleville in Co. Cork since 1983, specialises in the design and fabrication of stainless-steel systems to a global customer base. As of FY18, BCD reported c. €32.4m turnover and c. €2.0m EBITDA. The business was reportedly owned by Sean McGowan, Kieran Kavanagh and Tom Walsh.
Masco is a global player in the fabrication of pure water systems, particularly for the pharmaceutical industry.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: BCD went through some turbulent times with a lot of debt and challenging cashflows some years back but a team led by Sean McGowan came in brought a lot of discipline and grew it profitably to be sufficiently interesting to a buyer like Masco Group.
Source: The Sunday Times
Deal Details: Valeo Foods has agreed a deal to acquire Matthew Walker from the 2 Sisters Group for a reported €75.5m.
Valeo Foods owns a number of food brands including Bachelors Beans and the Jacobs biscuits brand and has grown substantially to date via acquisitions. It is the company’s 14th acquisition since the group was created in in 2010. Valeo now has sales in excess of €1bn.
Matthew Walker is the UK’s biggest manufacturer of Christmas puddings and is based in Derbyshire.
Advisers: None mentioned
Source: The Irish Times
Deal Details: MML Growth Capital Partners is reportedly set to invest €6.5m in Eastland Engineering Supply Co. (“EES”). The deal is subject to approval by the CCPC.
EES specialises in MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) services for large manufacturers in Ireland and the UK, with a particular focus on the pharma and food & beverage sectors. The business was established by Tommy and Catherine Hynes almost 30 years ago and reportedly now has a stable of blue chip clients which include Diageo and Pfizer.
Advisers: A team of Emmet Scully and Lisa McEllin of LK Shields provided legals for EES while BDO, led by Katharine Byrne and Eimear O’Hare, provided Corporate Finance advice to the vendor. Gavin O’Flaherty and Ben Podbury in Evershed Sutherland advised MML on the legals.
Gavin McGuire assisted in managing the vendor’s sales process including coordinating the various professional advisors. It’s a clever model that we see emerging and a very good offering for first time vendors.
Renatus Comment: EES is a fascinating story whereby Tommy Hynes went from selling spare parts to setting up his own version of same with his wife Catherine, to being a crucial cog in the supply chain of global food and pharma companies. They compete successfully against some global giants such as Rexel, Brammer, IESA.
Source: The Sunday Times
Details: Newenham Mulligan & Associates (NMA), the company linked to RDS and Curragh projects, announced with regret that it is going into liquidation.
Source: Irish Construction
Details: Ballymena-based Wrightbus, has agreed a deal “in principle” with the hydrogen entrepreneur Jo Bamford, the son of the billionaire JCB chairman.
Wrightbus had been due to go into liquidation on Friday with immediate loss of 1,200 jobs.
Talks are ongoing between Bamford and the firm’s administrators, Deloitte.
Source: Irish Times
Details: US private investment firm Pentwater Capital Management has obtained a 26% interest in State-backed life science investor Malin.
The group is also an investor in a number of healthcare companies, including Poseida, Autolus, Spark Therapeutics, Esperion Therapeutics.
Other major shareholders in Malin include the State’s Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.
Earlier this year embattled fund manager Neil Woodford sold all of his firm’s near 23% stake in the Irish life sciences investment firm.
Source: Irish Independent
Deal details: US company Spirit AeroSystems has emerged as the frontrunner to acquire Bombardier in Northern Ireland, according to reports.
It’s understood six parties have been considering buying Bombardier’s operations here – three aerospace firms and three investment houses.
Last month Bombardier in Belfast submitted plans which could see an additional 31,500 sq m extension to its huge 52,500 sq m site at Airport Road West
Source: Belfast Telegraph
We in Renatus believe that more important than the deals are the people and we have teamed up with leaders in this field Korn Ferry to provide you details of key recent executive and board level appointments
Arkphire appoints Chris Ambler to head up its Asia Pacific operations
As part of their continued global expansion, Irish owned IT solutions and IT product procurement specialist, Arkphire, has announced its direct presence in Singapore with the appointment of Chris Ambler as Arkphire’s Head of Asia Pacific. Headquartered in Dublin, Arkphire continues to scale its business globally delivering IT procurement solutions to customers across more than 90 countries. In his new role, Mr Ambler will lead a team in building and developing Arkphire’s business in the Asia Pacific region. Mr Ambler has over 20 years’ experience in the technology and managed services sector and prior to joining Arkphire he co-founded the Blue Logic Group, an award-winning IT Managed Services company in the UK.
Fiona Egan appointed new Managing Director for Rabobank in Ireland
Rabobank has announced the appointment of Fiona Egan to the position of Managing Director at Rabobank Dublin. Ms Egan assumes responsibility for the development, management and execution of the local business strategy for the activities of Rabobank in Ireland. She will also continue to be Head of Corporate Banking in Ireland, a position she has held for the past eight years. Ms Egan has over 20 years working as a Corporate and Investment banker, specialising in providing financial and investment advice to public and private companies in the food and agriculture, manufacturing and consumer sectors. Prior to joining Rabobank in 2004, Ms Egan held senior positions at Goodbody Corporate Finance and at Irish Permanent plc.
BHSM appoints new Partners in Dublin
BHSM has announced the expansion of the Firm with the appointment of two new partners, Richard Lee, Employment & Benefits and Rob Gibbons, Commercial Real Estate. Mr Lee trained at Hayes Solicitors prior to joining BHSM in 2013 as a Solicitor. Mr Gibbons joined the firm in December 2017 as a Senior Solicitor from Arthur Cox. Mr Gibbons trained at Eversheds.
EY Appoints Head of Debt Advisory
EY have appointed David Martin as their Head of Debt Advisory. David joins from Deloitte where he was the Director in Debt Advisory advising a range of clients on their debt raising soltions in the Real Estate, Corporate, Hospitality and SME sectors. Prior to Deloitte, David worked in Bank of Ireland where he had significant Corporate, Property and Business lending experience.
EBITDA is an accounting term and is often the best indicator of profitability in non-capital-intensive businesses before financing and tax are considered. In capital-intensive businesses EBIT or EBITDA less average Capital Expenditure are often better measures. YoY is an acronym for the year-on-year movement in turnover, EBITDA, etc.
Based in Meath, McCormack Farms Limited, which trades as McCormack Family Farms, grows and supplies herbs and baby leaves to many of the top retailers in Ireland including: Lidl, Tesco and Dunnes Stores. In its most recent financial year, revenue increased by 3.5% to c. €18.1m with 90.9% coming from sales in Ireland and the remaining 8.1% coming from sales to Europe. Although Revenue was up, EBITDA decreased slightly by 4.9% to c. €1.5m which was due to higher cost of sales in the year. The company employed on average 108 staff during the FY18 at a cost of c. €3.1m. Net cash for the year increased by c. €599k after the purchase of c. €483k of fixed assets as well as the repayment of a bank loan (c. €105k) and the payment of lease obligations (c. €248k). The company remains a family business and is owned by Edward (50%), Stephen (40%) and Laura (10%) McCormack.
Maybin Support Services (Ireland) Limited, which trades as Momentum Support, was established in 1982 and offers both cleaning and security solutions for businesses. Founded by Managing Director Colin Maybin, the company provides award winning Soft Services to businesses and organisations in both Ireland and the UK. In its latest financial year, Momentum saw revenue increase by 12.3% to c. €42.6m while EBITDA also increased by 1.2% to c. €2.6m. The company employed on average 1,648 employees in FY18 at a cost of c. €33.5m to the business. There was a net cash decrease in the year of c. €1.4m leaving a cash balance at the end of the year at c. €4.0m. Although there was strong operating profit in the year, the decrease in cash was largely attributable to a c. €849k payment to acquire fixed assets as well as a dividend payment of €2m, while there was also a significant decline in its working capital position, sucking c. €1.2m of cash. The company is owned by the Maybin family which includes Colin (75.82%), Nicholas (8.06%), Andrew (8.06%) and Rebecca (8.06%).
Edge Innovate (NI) Limited is a material handling and recycling equipment manufacturer. With its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Tyrone, the company is able to design, manufacture and export its material handling and recycling equipment all over the world. In FY18, the company saw its revenue increase by 27.1% to c. £24.2m while EBITDA increased by a staggering 146.1% to c. £4.0m as gross margins increased from 23.4% to 26.6% and admin expenses remained fairly static year-on-year despite the increase in revenue. The company employed on average 154 staff during the year at a cost c. £4.3m. The company had strong operating profit for the year but due to significant working capital movements including a c. £2.5m payment to creditors as well as a c. £1.2m increase of debtors, cash only increased by c. £298K for the period leaving a cash balance on the balance sheet of c. £7.9m and no debt. Net assets for the year stood at c. £11.2m. The company is owned by Diane McKiver (25%), Niall McKiver (25%), Brenda Cullen (25%) and Darragh Cullen (25%).
Who: Linked Finance, a peer-to-peer lending platform, has launched a new loan.
What: The new offering called “Beyond Brexit” allows Irish SMEs to access working capital facilities of up to €300,000 in just 24 hours.
Why: The loans are for Irish SMEs who are in the process of preparing for Brexit.
Source: Business Post
Who: Chapel Gate Irish Whiskey, a Co Clare blender and bonder founded by former Diageo executive Louise McGuane, has raised funding.
What: Almost €1m round was backed by Jon Rickert, the head of European private credit at the Man investment group, a family partnership under the name of J Patrick Molloy in Atlanta, Georgia, another Atlanta-based firm, Borrachotode and Ms McGuane’s husband, Dominic McCarthy.
Why: The purpose of the funds has not been specified.
Source: Irish Independent
Who: Utmost, founded by Irish tech entrepreneur Annrai O’Toole, Paddy Benson and Dan Beck in 2018, has raised funding. Utmost helps companies connect with workers outside of its non-direct staff – freelancers, contractors consultants and vendors – to provide transparency to the workflow.
What: $11.2m (€10.13m) was raised in Series A funding round, which was led by Silicon Valley VC firm Greylock with participation from Workday Ventures.
Why: The funds will be used to help companies engage with contractors.
Source: Fora
Who: Irish tech start-up Sweepr, founded in 2017, has raised funding. Sweepr uses AI and Natural Language Processing to provide support for Internet of Things enabled devices in the home.
What: $9m (€8.2m) Series A funding round was led by Draper Esprit, with further support from seed investor Frontline.vc
Why: The funds will be used to facilitate the expansion of its workforce to 75 employees in 2020. This will be possible by ramping up developments in North America and Europe.
Source: Tech.eu
Who: Irish start-up Restored Hearing, founded by Ms Togher and Eimear O’Carroll in 2009, has been awarded funding. The business has developed a sound therapy for tinnitus, Sound Relief.
What: €2.3m was won through the EU Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme.
Why: The funds will be used to further commercialise its sound-absorbing technology.
Source: Irish Times
Who: Nephin Whiskey has raised finance. Nephin was co-founded by Mark Quick and is based in Foxford. The business is aiming to set up a whiskey distillery in the west of Ireland.
What: The business has raised a reported €2.5m from the Davy EIIS Fund.
Why: The funds will be used to ensure that the plant is operational next year.
Source: The Sunday Business Post
Instead of ‘Thought for the Week’, we are bringing you a weekly tracker using odds from oddschecker and taking off bookmakers margin to come up with deemed percentage probability of outcomes.
The current markets read as follows:
Some Sort of Brexit: reflecting the postive talks:
By December ’19 39% (28% last week)
H1 2020 30% (no move)
H2 2020 6% (from 11%)
2021 6% (from 8.5%)
Not before 2022 19% (from 23%)
——————————
No deal 15% (from 18%)
Furthermore, the odds suggest it is virtually certain that the next step is an extension beyond 31 October.
If you are not in agreement with any of above you can get the odds here and back your opinion: Oddschecker – Brexit
0.9%
6.7%
The year-on-year drop in the number of new private cars licensed in September 2019 amounting to 4,104 new private cars, according to @CSOIreland
0.5%
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