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.
The maths on the compounding rate of infection of this Covid-19 virus are frightening when the model is run out vis-a-vis Italy, etc.
The efficiency of some of these measures is revelationary and will change habits in a positive way when the world resumes.The concern for those most vulnerable is foremost on all minds.
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
Deal Details: Pennon Group Plc has announced it has entered into an agreement for the sale of Viridor Limited to Planets UK Bidco Limited (Bidco) for an Enterprise Value of £4.2bn (€4.55bn) on a cash-free, debt-free basis representing an EV/EBITDA multiple of 18.5x.
The transaction, which Pennon’s board has approved, is expected to complete this summer subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.
Viridor is one of UK’s leading recycling and residual waste businesses that transforms waste into energy.
Established in the 1990’s, Viridor provides services to around 150 local authorities and major corporate clients as well as around 32,000 customers (by account) across the UK.
Bidco is a newly formed private limited company incorporated in England and Wales, established by funds advised by KKR for the purpose of undertaking the Transaction.
Pennon Group plc is a British water utility and waste management company. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Advisers: Barclays Plc and Morgan Stanley advised Pennon on the sale.
RBC Capital and UBS Group AG worked with KKR.
Renatus Comment: We don’t normally cover international deals such as this but we included it to show that life does go on and the world does not have to stop.
Source: Pennon Group Press Release
Deal Details: The Orpea Groupe has confirmed the purchase of Michael Fetherston’s TLC Group for an undisclosed sum.
The TLC Group is an Irish healthcare provider founded by Michael Fetherston. The group operates 5 nursing homes across the greater Dublin region with a total of 674 beds. In 2019 the group generated revenue of c. €40m with occupancy rates of 97%-99%. The group was put on the market last summer with a reported asking price of more than €150m.
The Orpea Groupe was founded in 1989 by Dr Jean-Claude Marian and is one of the world’s largest nursing home operators with more than 1,000 facilities and over 104,000 beds in 22 countries. Last year it had revenues of c. €3.7bn.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: Michael Fetherston built possibly Ireland’s biggest nursing home group and had the financial strength to recently acquire the K Club for a reported €55m.
Source: The Sunday Times
Deal Details: The Moyne Roberts Group has purchased English alarm and CCTV company Keyways Group for about €10m.
Moyne Roberts is an Irish fire safety products and services business which is run by David and Andrew Cosgrove, employing c. 525 people across Ireland, the UK, Germany, Benelux and the Middle East. The business was setup in 1984 and it previously purchased Apex Fire back in 2008.
Keyways Group is based in Manchester and has been providing security and safety systems for over 50 years. The business employs around 100 staff across three locations in Manchester, Oldham and in Kendal in the Lake District. In FY19, the group had revenue of c. £8.8m and a post-tax profit of c. £655k.
Advisers: Patrick Dillon of Grant Thornton corporate finance advised Moyne Roberts on the Keyways deal.
Renatus Comment: Pat Cosgrove, father to the two current operators, was a pioneer in this space having set up Moyne Engineering in 1984. In 1990, the business acquired two similar UK-based fire services and equipment businesses, H Walker and Eric Roberts, and merged both with Moyne Engineering to create Moyne Roberts Ltd as it is known today.
In its latest set of accounts Dec ’18, Moyne Roberts (Ireland) Limited reported revenue of c. €33.1m and EBITDA of c. €6.9m, of which a lot is recurring. There are many facets to the business but the Walkers fire and Apex brands are the ones most renowned.
Source: The Sunday Times
Deal Details: Businessman, Larry Goodman, has taken a majority stake in the Blackrock Clinic private hospital in Dublin after acquiring a stake previously held by the clinic’s co-founder Joe Sheehan Sr. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
The stake was put up on the market in January by a receiver to sell the 28% stake previously owned by Sheehan Sr. The acquisition will take Goodman’s holding in the hospital to 64%, while co-founder Jimmy Sheehan will own a 16% stake and Dr George Duffy owning 20%.
In FY18, the Blackrock Clinic had revenues of €123.1m with a profit of €6.9m.
Advisers: None mentioned
Renatus Comment: We mentioned that Larry Goodman was primed to take a majority stake in the Blackrock Clinic back in December in our ‘Deals in the Making’ section after his company, Parma Investments Limited, looked set to acquire the remaining 25% shareholding of Marpole Limited – parent company of the Galway Clinic. Goodman has since gained full control of the Galway clinic by paying c. €31.75m for the 25% stake mentioned. Goodman also owns close to a third of the Hermitage Clinic.
Source: The Sunday Times
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.
Teleflex appoints senior VP in Ireland
Teleflex Medical has promoted James Winters to Corporate VP of Manufacturing and Supply Chain. Mr Winters joined Teleflex in 2018 as Global Head of Manufacturing. He was previously a senior executive at Johnson & Johnson and based at its DePuy Synthes operation in Cork.
Taoiseach appoints communications expert on Covid-19
Leo Varadkar has appointed John Concannon to manage the government’s public information campaign on the Corona Virus crisis. Mr Concannon who spearheaded the Wild Atlantic Way initiative, took up an appointment as VP of Development at NUI Galway in 2019. He previously served as Director of Market Development at Fáilte Ireland for over 8 years.
Lavelle Partners appoints new Partner
Law firm, Lavelle Partners has appointed Conor Robinson as a Partner in its corporate and commercial practice. Mr Robinson previously worked for Tully Rickney as a Partner. He previously owned his own small solicitor’s firm trading as CB Robinson & Co for almost 7 years. Prior to his career in Law, Mr Robinson was a very successful businessman having founded CBR International in 1993 and selling the business in 2007.
Navi Group appoints new Managing Director
Former senior executive at AIB, John O’Dwyer, has been appointed as Managing Director at Navi Group. Navi is a large pharmacy retail, buying and technology group and Mr O’Dwyer will lead its technology and digital division. At AIB, he was Director of Corporate Development and previously served as the bank’s Head of Digital Investments and Innovation. Mr O’Dwyer previously worked at Total Produce in Corporate Development and at KPMG in the US in M&A Advisory.
Wilson Hartnell appoints Chief Strategy Officer
Jo Wood has been appointed chief strategy officer with PR firm Wilson Hartnell. With over 12 years’ experience in leading the development of effective brand and communication strategies, she has held strategic planning roles at MCCP, where she was strategy director since 2017, DDFH&B Advertising and Ogilvy Dublin, where she first began her career. She has won four ADFX Awards, including Gold as the lead planner on SuperValu for Long Term Effectiveness in 2016. She holds an MSc in Advertising from DIT and a BA degree in History of Arts and Classics from TCD. She is a regular speaker on consumer, cultural and business trends at industry events.
NTR appoints new non-executive director to its board
Helen Kirkpatrick has joined the board of NTR plc, which has wind and solar projects across Europe and the US. She will also join the audit and remuneration committees of the organisation. She is a director of Dale Farm Co-op and chair of Nueda and has been a director of Kingspan Group plc and UTV Media plc. Helen holds a BA degree in Business Studies from Ulster University, and is a Fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountants, as well as a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
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 Belfast, Devenish (NI) Limited is a farming and food company that delivers sustainable and innovative nutritional products and solutions for the feed industry, the food industry and for human health. In FY19, the company saw revenue increase marginally by 1.7% to c. £228.5m while EBITDA was up 12.3% to c. £8.6m. The company employed an average of 521 people during the year at a cost of c. £27.5m. There was a net cash increase of c. £9.9m in FY19 after considerable working capital movements freed up c. £2.5m of cash although c. £16.9m was spent on investing activities which included c. £6.5m of the purchase of intangible assets, c. £9.2m on the acquisition of tangible assets as well as a c. £1.2m acquisition of an associate. The company also took on a new long-term loan of c. £26.5m while it repaid c. £6.6m of a bank loan during the year as well as c. £2.8m of interest. The overall net cash balance for the year stood at negative c. £13.0m which was split between cash in bank of c. £2.4m and bank overdraft and short-term facilities of c. £15.4m. Net assets for the year remained relatively flat compared to the previous year. The company is owned by Owen Brennan (60.66%), Eilir Jones (13.16%), Peter Wallace (10.53%), Richard Kennedy (5.26%), Colm McCotter (5.26%), Cory Penn (2.63%) and Patrick McLaughlin (2.5%).
Qualvecom limited, is a Dublin-based distributor and wholesaler of components into the automotive market. A member of The Parts Alliance, Qualvecom has been supplying battieries, body parts, alarms, brakes and a host of other car components for over 50 years. FY19 was a strong year for the company which saw turnover rise by c. 11% to €26.7m and EBITDA rise by c. 14.3% to €1.33m. Gross margins remained virtually flat at c. 29% for the period. The business increased its headcount by three to 96 during the period with an annual cost of c. €4.25m. There was a c. €220k CapEx spend during the year, roughly two thirds of which related to motor vehicles. The cash balance decreased by c. €1.1m during the year to close at c. €1.2m and there was no debt on the balance sheet. The biggest draw on cash during the year was a €1.28m dividend paid out to the shareholders. The business is ultimately owned by Eoin (40%), Colm (40%) and Cliodhnna Reid (20%). |
Who: My Money Jar, a Dublin-based tech start-up founded by Kevin Treacy in 2018, has closed a funding round.
What: The company raised €700,000, taking its total fundraising to more than €1.3m over the past 18 months. The funding round was led by Enterprise Ireland and includes several private investors.
Why: The purpose of the funding was not disclosed however it is believed to be used towards expansion.
Source: Irish Times
Who: Change Donations, a Dublin-based tech start-up that allows people to make cashless donations to charities by “rounding up” their debit card transactions, has secured funding.
What: The start-up has closed a seed funding round worth €800k.
Why: The funds will be used to help the company scale up in the Irish market and also expand into the US.
Source: Business Post
3.2%
The year-on-year increase in the Irish consumer expenditure for February 2020 according to Visa’s Irish Consumer Spending Index. @RTEbusiness
9% & 6%
The year on year increase in the value of goods exports and fall in the value of imports, respectively, in Ireland for 2020, amounting to €13,736m and €7,105m, according to @CSOIreland
2.4%
Northern Ireland’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the 3-month period Nov-Jan 2020, one of the lowest rates on record, according to NI Statistics and Research Agency. @BelTel
77.3
The KBC Bank’s consumer confidence index for March 2020, an 8-point drop since February, one of the largest on record. @IrishTimesBiz
0.8%
The year-on-year decrease in the Irish manufacturing prices for February 2020, according to @CSOIreland
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