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Please find below this week’s newsletter covering the latest M&A, company performance, fundraisings and executive moves.
Deal Details: Pointy, a Dublin-founded retail technology start-up is to be acquired by Google in a deal believed to be worth €150m. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in the coming weeks.
Pointy, founded in 2014 by Mark Cummins and Charles Bibby, makes a technology that connects the inventory of local shops to online e-commerce channels. It makes a ‘Pointy Box’ that connects to a shop’s barcode scanner and automatically lists the shop’s products online, optimising them for search engines.
Google swooped when it saw that Pointy was gaining traction with US retailers.
Pointy launched in the United States in 2016, and by the end of 2019 it was being used by over 10,000 U.S. stores, or 1% of U.S. retailers, giving it a lot of runway for growth.
Pointy has raised €16.2m total in funding. Its early investors included the founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Bebo, Michael Birch and the co-founder of Transferwise, Taavet Hinrikus. Dublin-based Frontline Ventures, Bono, Richmond Marketing’s Barry Connolly and Alan Metcalfe, tech investor Noel Ruane, Trevor Parsons, co-founder of Irish tech company Logentries, Ed Byrne of Texas-based venture firm Scaleworks, former Amazon exec Tony Killalea, Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen and Jamie Heaslip. It later raised funding from VS firms Polaris, Draper Associates and Vulcan Capital.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: Pointy is a product that many of us would have been using without realising it. It’s a compelling solution which brings brick-and-mortar stock and purchase information into the Google search, undercutting other ecommerce aggregators and offering a new streamlined route to market for SME retailers.
This is Google’s fourth acquisition of a young Irish company and the second time Pointy’s co-founder Mark Cummins has sold a company to the tech giant. In 2010 Google acquired Plink, a separate start-up by Mr Cummins.
Google also snapped up TCD campus companies Thrive in 2015 and Green Parrot Pictures in 2011.
Source: Pointy; Irish Independent
Deal Details: Talbot Group, an operator of 20 respite homes across Ireland for adults with intellectual disability and acquired brain injury and a community care services facility in Stamullen, Co. Meath, has been acquired by Belgian investment vehicle Care4Invest.
Talbot Group was founded by brothers Dr. Tony Woods and Michael Woods and is today run by CEO Laverne McGuinness.
Care4Invest, led by Alec de Changy and Benoit Duplat, is an investment vehicle focused on care services. Other investments by Care4Invest include a residential and supported-living services for adults with an intellectual disability in the north of England and a care group in Belgium.
The Talbot Group deal was financed by London-based Sequoia Asset IDF.
Advisers: None mentioned.
Renatus Comment: The care space in Ireland is a sector of focus with a lot of investment capital coming into the sector over the last few years. The nursing home space has seen the largest inflow of capital so far with a wall of domestic and foreign investors entering the market to consolidate homes into larger groups, with BGF’s €10m minority investment into Brindley Healthcare, CareChoice’s €70m acquisition by French investor InfraVia, Cork-based financial firm BlackBee targeting a €250m fund for residential care, and Waterland Private Equity majority acquisition of Silver Stream Health Group, among others. Investments have also been made into other parts of the care space, including MML’s investments into Ashdale Care, a provider of care for young people, and Irish HomeCare, a provider of in home services with for people with dementia.
Source: The Sunday Times
Deal Details: St. James’ Place’s proposed acquisition of Harvest Financial Services Group has fallen through. St. James’ Place is a British-based wealth manager while Harvest is a Dublin-based financial advisor. The deal had previously been agreed and was subject to approval by the Central Bank. However, St. James’ Place have now exited the deal due to “strategic decisions”.
Source: Sunday Independent
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 with details of key recent executive and board level appointments.
New Managing Partner appointed at O’Flynn Exhams
Law firm, O’Flynn Exhams, has announced the appointment of Shane Crossan as the firm’s new managing partner, succeeding Richard Neville. Mr Neville, who served as managing partner for more than a decade, will continue as a partner, heading up the firm’s corporate department. Mr Crossan has wide experience across a range of practice areas and recently served as head of the firm’s litigation and dispute resolution department.
HOMS Solicitors appoints new Banking Partner
Holmes O’Malley Sexton Solicitors has announced the appointment of Lisa Killeen as a partner in the banking team. Ms Killeen, who will also play a key role in the firm’s construction unit, joined the firm in 2013, having previously worked at William Fry. She specialises in banking and finance transactions and regularly advises both lenders and borrowers on secured and unsecured lending. Ms Killeen also practises in all aspects of commercial property law.
Coca Cola HBC appoints new General Manager
Australian businessman, Miles Karemacher, has been appointed as General Manager for Ireland at Coca Cola HBC. Mr Karemacher moved from his role as Commercial Excellence Director for Coca Cola in Milan to take up his appointment in Ireland. He is a former senior executive at SAB Miller where he worked across a number of roles in Finance.
Sixt CEO appointed to the board of the FAI
Catherine Guy, who was appointed late last year as CEO of Autolease Fleet Management which trades under the Sixt Leasing brand in Ireland, has been appointed to the board of the Football Association of Ireland as an Independent Non-Executive Director. Ms Guy is a former Managing Partner at law firm, ByrneWallace. She worked at ByrneWallace for 21 years.
Elkstone Partners appoints new Investment Director
Investment and Wealth Management firm, Elkstone, has appointed former KPMG executive Tanner O’Connell as Investment Director in Ireland. Mr O’Connell is a Chartered Accountant and a commerce graduate of UCD.
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 Co. Tyrone, Lowry Building & Civil Engineering Limited is a leading medium-sized contractor in Northern Ireland. The company’s model focuses on core services which include Building, Civil Engineering, Facilities Management and Demolition with experience in sectors such as Education, Healthcare, Commercial, Leisure and Tourism, Community, Industrial and Utilities. In its most recent financial year, the company saw revenue increase by 27.6% to c. £25.6m while EBITDA increased by 15.5% to c. £1.6m. The company employed an average of 49 people during the year at a cost of c. £1.6m. There was a net cash decrease of c. £57k in FY19 after significant working capital movements, most notably a c. £1.2m increase in debtors, as well as c. £361k invested in tangible fixed assets and c. £129k spent on the purchase of new investment properties. The company also received proceeds of c. £402k from the sale of fixed assets, leaving cash on the balance sheet at c. £1.8m against a debt balance of c. £229k. Net assets were up 42.4% to c. £4.3m. The company is 100% owned by Helen Lowry.
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Who: A Cork-based technology start-up TeachKloud, that has developed a platform for early childcare providers, has completed a funding round and is seeking to raise more.
What: The €750,000 investment was led by Dublin-based Frontline Ventures via the AIB Discovery Fund. Other backers include Enterprise Ireland, the Irish educational publisher Folens and edtech entrepreneur and investor Sean Tai. It is hoping to raise up to €4m more in 2020.
Why: TeachKloud intends to use the funding to hire extra staff in product development and marketing as it prepares to launch in Britain and further afield.
Source: Irish Times
Who: PMD SOLUTIONS, A medical device company based in Cork, has raised funding.
What: €1.4m is backed by several angel investors. It recently also received investment under EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.
Why: This investment will be used for expansion to the Middle East market and for recruiting engineering and sales and marketing personnel.
Source: Fora
Who: NI employment initiative Let’s Work has received investment.
What: Just under £1.7m (€2m) is provided by Northern Ireland Executive’s Social Investment Fund.
Why: The programme aims to increase employment in areas of need. It aims to engage with up to 160 participants from socially disadvantaged areas such as Larne, Ballymena, Cookstown, Moyle, Ballymoney and Carrickfergus.
Source: Belfast Telegraph
Who: CorkBioHub, a new research and development life sciences facility, has been granted funding.
What: €3m is afforded through Enterprise Ireland Regional Enterprise Development Fund (REDF).
Why: The funding will act as a catalytic enabler to the success of the CorkBioHub in supporting the growth of the indigenous biology-based start-up sector in Cork.
Source: Irish Independent
Who: Irish health and safety compliance technology company Effective Software has competed a new funding round.
What: €1.3m backing comes from Elkstone and a few significant private investors as well as from an existing investor ACT Venture Capital.
Why: The company is planning an ambitious global expansion and is also rebranding as Engage EHS.
Source: Irish Times
Who: A renewable energy consultancy start-up BrightWind, a UCD spin-in platform founded in 2015, has raised funding.
What: €162,000 is backed by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). The company was one of 50 projects backed as part of an €11m fund announced by the Government at the end of December 2019.
Why: The purpose of the funding is to develop a new wind and solar resource data management platform and to support BrightWind in building an open-source data analysis Python library to enable industry cooperation and research activities through easy access of wind and solar data.
Source: Silicon Republic
Who: Tigers Childcare, an Irish creche and after-school care business with 13 centres across Dublin and Meath, founded and led by Karen Clince, has secured funding.
What: €5m capital and support is being provided by DunPort.
Why: The funding is to support expansion in Ireland and into the UK with its first overseas facility due to open in London in February.
Source: Irish Times
Who: Capital Flow, an Irish non-bank lender run by CEO Ronan Horgan that provides finance to businesses for invoice discounting, asset finance and commercial property finance.
What: Capital Flow has partnered with the Strategic Bank Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) to provide €50m in new lower-cost funding to Irish SMEs. Eligible borrowers will be able to borrow between €10,000 and €1m. The new lending, which is available immediately, will be offered for the financing of new and used equipment and machinery and vehicles.
Why: SBCI does not lend directly to businesses itself but rather partners with established lending organisations to deploy its capital into the Irish market. Its partnership with Capital Flow is its 10th on-lending partnership in Ireland.
Source: Sunday Independent
While many may have good cause to think, based on various graphs and various behaviours, that we are ‘near the top’ again, a presentation by Davy’s Conall MacCoille reminded us during the week about the healthy state of household and corporate balance sheets. If we compare December 2006 with November 2019, the sum of household and corporate deposits versus outstanding debt has gone from 45.4% to 128.8%.
As well as that, our main retail banks have almost parity on deposits to loans (see below)
Even if we are ‘near the top’, the state of our consolidated personal, corporate and pillar banks’ balance sheets surely leave us much more protected.
6.5%
The year-on-year decline in the total number of new private cars licensed in 2019, with c. 113,305 new cars licensed for the first time last year, according to the @CSOIreland
@examinerbiz
2.85%
1.3%
The year-on-year increase in the consumer price index for December 2019 with the most notable changes in Education sector rising by 4.1%, according to @CSOIreland
3.5% & 1.9%
The year-on-year decrease in the agricultural output and input price indices for November 2019, according to @CSOIreland
1.4%
The year-on-year increase in the Irish residential property prices for November 2019, according to @CSOIreland
52
The monthly Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) index for December 2019, which measures commercial, housing and civil engineering. A reading over 50 indicates growth, according to @UlsterBank Bank @IndoBusiness
9%
The year-to-date increase in the value of Irish goods exports for the 11 months to November 2019, amounting to €140.7bn, according to @IrishTimesBiz
2.7%
The year-on-year decline in construction output in NI for Q3 2019, according to the NI Statistics & Research Agency. @BelTel
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