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.
Deal Details: Arachas Corporate Brokers has acquired Murray & Spelman for an undisclosed sum.
Arachas is a Dublin-based insurance provider founded in 2003 through the merger of Cork-based broker Tyrrell Coakley with two Dublin-based peers, Hodgins Percival and Slattery Jermyn.
Murray & Spelman, led by chief executive Conor Brennan, was established in Galway in 1956 and is now one of the largest financial services brokers in the West of Ireland.
The move is part of the strategic decision to grow the Arachas business in Ireland and it is understood that the company is seeking further acquisitions.
Advisers: Arachas was advised on legals by Eversheds, Alan Mahon and Shane Foyle of AIB Corporate Finance, along with Mazars, Intuitus and EisnerAmper. Mark Gibbs DHKN corporate finance advised the vendor.
Renatus Comment: The most recent set of accounts for Arachas Corporate Brokers Ltd shows that its turnover rose to €18.2m in 2017 from €17.2m a year earlier, according to Companies Registration Office filings. Pretax profit declined to €1.29m from €2.28m, as expenses increased.
This is the fourth acquisition Arachas has made since Sovereign Capital backed the MBO of the business in July 2017, and secures Arachas’ position as the largest independent broking group in Ireland. Completion is subject to regulatory approval from the Central Bank of Ireland.
Source: Murray & Spelman
Deal Details: Building materials group CRH has reached agreement to divest of its European distribution business to private equity fund Blackstone for an Enterprise Value of €1.64bn, payable in cash.
CRH is the leading building materials business in the world, employing c. 90,000 people at c. 3,700 operating locations in 32 countries.
The Blackstone Group Inc., an American multinational private equity, is one of the leading investment firms in the world with $512bn in assets under management.
Advisers: Lazard acted as financial advisor and Clifford Chance as legal advisor to Blackstone.
Renatus Comment: In 2018 the business generated proforma EBITDA of €155m on proforma sales of €3.7bn; pre-tax profit amounted to €124m and gross assets to €1.9bn.
Source: CRH
Deal Details: British pub group JD Wetherspoon has exchanged contracts to acquire the Carbon Nightclub on Eglinton Street in Galway city centre.
The company aims to invest €2.5m developing the site into a pub with 4,000 sq ft of customer area and a 1,900 sq ft first floor beer garden, pending planning permission.
Advisers: None Mentioned.
Renatus Comment: The news comes a week after the opening of Wetherspoon’s seventh pub in Ireland – the group invested €4m in its new Silver Penny pub on Lower Abbey Street in central Dublin.
Source: Irish Examiner
Deal Details: British health insurer Bupa has acquired Sandymount Dental Clinic. Bupa has acquired the business through its Smiles Dental brand in Ireland.
The south Dublin clinic was set up in 2004 and is led by Dr. Dermott McMorrough. As part of the deal, the Sandymount clinic will close and its employees will join the Smiles Dental clinic on Waterloo Rd in Ballsbridge.
No deal details were disclosed.
Advisers: None mentioned.
Renatus Comment: Smiles Dental was originally founded by Irish entrepreneur Emmet O’Neill and was sold to Oasis Healthcare, a UK dental group, in 2014 for an estimated €36m. Oasis was then subsequently acquired by Bupa in 2017 in a deal valued at £835m – at the time Oasis had an estimated 420 clinics across Ireland and the UK.
Bupa dental care now operates c. 480 clinics across the UK and 24 in Ireland.
Source: Smiles Dental
Deal Details: US based private equity firm The Firmament Group has invested in cinema advertising companies Pearl & Dean and Wide Eye Media.
Multi-asset manager Westbrooke Alternative Asset Management partnered with Firmament to provide up to €10m in debt and equity capital to the companies to refinance existing debt facilities and support future growth initiatives.
Pearl & Dean and Wide Eye Media provide turnkey solutions to support cinema operators, advertisers and agencies in the U.K. and Ireland.
Advisers: None mentioned.
Renatus Comment: Wide Eye Media and Pearl & Dean are controlled by Dubliner Michael Ormonde.
Wide Eye Media is the biggest cinema ad company in Ireland and Pearl & Dean has contracts with one-third of UK cinemas.
Source: The Firmament Group
Deal Details: Dunnes Stores is proposing a takeover of JC Savage Supermarket Ltd in Swords. Its business is known to have been impacted by the arrival of German discounter Lidl to the area. The most recent set of accounts for 2017 show the retailer’s turnover fell nearly 17% to €22.4m with the business making a financial loss of €594,564.
Source: Irish Times
Deal Details: The owner of the Mirror, Express and Star national newspaper titles is in talks to buy parts of rival JPI Media, which owns the News Letter and Derry Journal. JPI put itself up for sale earlier this year after falling into administration in 2018.
Source: Belfast Telegraph
Deal Details: The K Club, owned by businessman Michael Smurfit, has been relisted with an asking price of €60m. It first went on the market in June 2018 with a guiding price of €80m.
Source: Irish Examiner
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
Initiative Ireland hires new Finance Director
Property finance platform Initiative Ireland has appointed Aisling Healy as its Director of Finance and Treasury. Ms Healy, who brings over 30 years of experience to the role, will be responsible for all aspects of financial and treasury management within the Initiative Financial Group, which specialises in social impact investments. Prior to this appointment, she held senior financial roles in a variety of organisations, including accountancy practice, software development, not-for-profit, and education.
Susan O’Halloran appointed chief legal officer at National Treasury Management Agency
Solicitor Susan O’Halloran has been appointed chief legal officer of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA). Ms O’Halloran joined the NTMA in 2012 and served as head of the NTMA’s legal unit prior to her appointment as chief legal officer. She was previously a corporate partner at McCann FitzGerald for 10 years, where she also trained and worked following qualification as a solicitor.
Helen Martin appointed chief executive of Charities Regulator
Solicitor Helen Martin has been appointed as chief executive of the Charities Regulator. She has been performing the functions of the CEO on an acting-up basis since last October, and prior to that was director of regulation at the regulatory body. Before joining the Charities Regulator, Ms Martin worked in the Office of the Attorney General. She also worked in the private sector for over 10 years, holding roles including senior associate in the regulatory and competition law unit of a large law firm and in-house legal and regulatory adviser for two telecommunications companies.
Comyn Kelleher Tobin appoints three new partners in Dublin and Cork
Comyn Kelleher Tobin (CKT) has announced the appointment of Louise Duggan, Lebeau Jonker and Emily Sexton as partners across the firm’s Dublin and Cork offices. Ms Duggan, partner in CKT’s commercial property department, has a track record acting for developers, institutions and businesses in a complex property market. She advises on all areas of commercial conveyancing and the acquisition, financing, leasing, development and disposal of commercial property and mixed scheme developments, and her clients include property developers, investors, receivers, banks, state bodies and educational institutions. Mr Jonker, partner in healthcare and medical law, has a national reputation in healthcare and child protection law with extensive experience in wardship, mental health, disabilities, civil detention and civil detention cases with an international element. Ms Sexton, partner in employment, healthcare and medical law, is a CEDR-accredited mediator and practices in the area of employment law, primarily advising employers, including healthcare employers, in relation to legislative obligations and the defence of employment claims.
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.
Tempside Limited trades as Polonez, the Polish food specialist retailer. Having started life in 2003 with one shop in Naas, Co. Kildare, the business now operates 30 stores across the island of Ireland. The business continues to grow and in its most recent financial year it expereinced revenue growth of 15.1% to c. €29.9m. This translated to EBITDA of c.€1.7m, up 2.8% from a year previous. Gross margins fell to 33.6% from 35.3% last year meaning that top line growth was not fully captured by EBITDA which management attributed to a lower margin sales mix. The business converted EBITDA to a net cash increase of c. €111k after significant CapEx investments were made during the year. c. €2.1m was spent on PP&E, partially offset by a new loan of c. €1.5m. Polonez had net assets of c. €5.0m at the end of the year and is wholly owned by Adrian Rezmerita.
Cork-based Dexgreen Connect design and manufacture component solutions for the telecoms, data centre, security and other industries. In their most recent financial year, revenues decreased by 4.9% to c. €17.1m but the business managed to increase EBITDA by 17.8% to c. €3.4m. Greater cost control unlocked the EBITDA expansion as gross margins increased to 37.8% from 32.4% in FY17. The business was cash generative as it turned EBITDA to a net cash increase of c. €2.4m. Their working capital dynamic created a cash suck during the year and apart from a tax bill of c. €375k was the most significant drain on cash. The business ended the year with no long term loans against a cash balance of c. €9.7m. Dexgreen Connect is wholly owned by William and Anne Horgan.
Based in the town of Gorey in County Wexford, Amber Springs Hotel Limited is a four-star family run hotel and spa which is part of the Redmond Hotel Group. The hotel boasts a number of restaurants including the award-winning Farm Steakhouse where farm produce is brought straight to the kitchen from the Redmond Family Farm which is located nearby. In their most recent financial year, Amber Springs Hotel saw revenue increase by 29.7% to c. €9.6m while EBITDA increased by 67.4% to c.€2.5m, up from c.€1.5m the previous year. The company employed on average 216 people in 2018 at an annual cost of c. €3.5m. There was a net cash increase during the year of c.€730k leaving a positive cash balance of c.€1.7m on the balance sheet. The company spent c.€690k on fixed assets which was largely attributable to fixtures and fittings. Net assets for the business stood at c.€5.0m at the end of FY18, up from c.€3.4m the previous year. The company is equally owned by Patrick and Thomas Redmond.
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DPL Group Limited is a builder providers and DIY suppliers which is headquartered in Dublin with nine additional branches nationwide. The group, founded in 1971, specialises in the provision of drains, heating, plumbing and general building products to both trade and the public. FY18 was a positive year for the business as turnover and EBITDA increased by 5.6% to c.€51.9m and 20.7% to c.€3.0m respectively. Gross margins and operating costs as a percentage of sales were effectively flat compared to last year. The group employed an average of 178 people over the year at a cost of c.€5.3m. DPL converted EBITDA to a net cash increase of c.€1.8m after investment in working capital and c.€858k was spent on various fixed assets. DPL Group is predominantly owned by Jeremiah Maher and Noel Keogh, among others.
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Who: Vela Games, a new Dublin-based games studio, has raised funding.
What: €3.4m in seed funding came from financier Dermot Desmond’s International Investment and Underwriting, or IIU, and Enterprise Ireland.
Why: The money will be used to cover production and overheads cost of their first game, a multi-player online game based on original intellectual property, which is yet to be titled.
Source: Fora
Who: Mining group Conroy Gold has raised funding through the issue of an unsecured convertible loan note.
What: €250,000 loan has provided by Hard Metal Machine Tools Limited, whose owner has an 8.28% interest in Conroy.
Why: The money will be used for general corporate purposes, as well as exploration programme costs.
Source: Irish Independent; Conroy Gold
Who: Gousto, the UK’s biggest-selling recipe box business has secured new funding.
What: £30m funding round was led by private equity firm Perwyn.
Why: The funds will be used to drive recruitment, with Gousto looking to hire more than 100 technology staff by 2022, building on its team of 80 currently based in London.
Source: Belfast Telegraph
Who: Trifol Resources, an Irish company that has developed and patented a process for turning landfill plastic into wax for use in a wide range of products has raised funding.
What: €300,000 was recently raised in a crowdfunding campaign in the space of 24 hours, which was being hosted on the Irish crowdfunding site Spark.
Why: The money will be used towards boosting production of the EnviroWax solution to 7,000 tonnes per year in 2020.
Source: Irish Times; Spark Cowdfunding
Who: Fenergo, an Irish fintech company led by Marc Murphy, has raised investment.
What: €66m is believed to have been raised from CSC Computer Sciences Holdings, whose parent is US software giant DXC Technology, a New York Listed company that provides business to business IT services with a market value of c.$15bn (€13.4bn).
Why: The funds were raised for supporting business expansion.
Source: Fora
Who: Cubic Telecom, a Dublin-based telecoms software firm that provides a global connectivity platform, secures funding.
What: €23.5m is provided by European Investment Bank (EIB).
Why: The new funds will support the development of its software connectivity platform and help its global network operations expansion.
Source: RTE
The character of each individual player and the entire team shows up, either good or bad, during the hard times. It is difficult to get through a rough stretch if your players don’t have mental toughness. We go the extra mile to delve into players and see how they’ll fit. You are telling the locker room every time you draft a player, “this is what we stand for.” If you bring in someone with a poor work ethic, or someone who is selfish, or someone who is unwilling to put in the work, you’re telling the locker room that that’s OK. Jerry Angelo used to say all the time that the talent of a player will tell you his ceiling, but his football character determines his floor. It’s critical to get that right, so we know the floor.
Simtech Aviation received an award for Aviation Training at the Aviation Industry Awards Ball in Dublin on Friday 12th July 2019.
The award was presented to Simtech Aviation based on the development of their Airline Pilot Standard (APS MCC) which was the first in Ireland and one of the first in Europe to launch in November 2018.
The award was accepted on the night by Tim Shattock CEO of Simtech Aviation and Des Wynne Sales Director.
Press release can be read here: https://go.renatus.ie/e/
€1.8bn
Ireland’s budget deficit for Q1 2019. Government revenue was €18.7bn for the quarter while expenditure was €20.5bn.
@CSOIreland
14%
The year-on-year increase in goods exports in Ireland in May 2019 compared to May 2018 bringing the value of exports so far this year to €64bn.
@CSOIreland
€44,365
Ireland’s per capita debt balance for Q1 2019. This is significantly higher than 2007’s per capita figure of €10,667 but lower than 2013’s peak of €47,514.
@irishexaminer @CSOIreland
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