Q4 DEALS: ANALYSIS
http://www.insider.co.uk March 2020 INSIDER 69
TOP PERFORMERS
among Scotland’s Investors/Advisors January 2019 to December 2019INVESTORS No. of deals Value
Scottish Enterprise* 94 >£142.42m
Par Equity 33 >£34.37m
Equity Gap 18 >£11.2m
Kelvin Capital 11 >£10m
Archangel Investors Ltd 8 >£10.73m
Techstart Ventures 8 >£6.15m
Maven Capital Partners** 7 >£8.27m
University of Strathclyde 6 >£4.37m
Bank of Scotland 5 >£18.32m
Mercia Technologies 5 >£7.09m
Old College Capital 5 >£4.14m
Panoramic Growth Equity 5 >£1.5m
Barclays Bank 4 >£6.5m
EOS Syndicate Management Ltd 4 >£2.07m
Aliter Capital 4 N/D
Epidarex 4 N/D
Royal Bank of Scotland 3 >£67.38m
Business Growth Fund (Scotland) 3 >£14.8m
Clydesdale Bank 3 >£7.8m
SIS Ventures 3 >£4.6m
Energy Ventures 3 >£2.49m
Santander (Scotland) 3 >£1.7m
Barwell Plc 3 >£1.45m
Scottish Growth Scheme 3 >£0.56m
Discovery Investment Fund 3 N/D
University of Edinburgh 2 >£8m
Gabriel Investment Syndicate 2 >£3.3m
Shawbrook Bank Plc 2 N/D
LifeArc 2 N/D
LSIP Limited 2 N/D
*incl Scottish Investment Bank 31 @ >£62.21m. **Scottish Loan Fund 2 @
>£2.49m
LAWYERS No. of deals Value
Burness Paull 304 >£31.37bn
Brodies 135 >£1.22bn
Harper Macleod 125 >£4.19bn
Pinsent Masons 90 >£4.09bn
Shepherd & Wedderburn 88 >£12.79bn
Addleshaw Goddard 73 >£387.5m
CMS 69 >£13.8bn
MBM Commercial 68 >£504.98m
MacRoberts 51 >£97.08m
Macdonald Henderson 51 >£10.9m
Dentons (Scotland) 40 >£8.8bn
Lindsays 34 >£522.57m
Blackadders 34 >£35.42m
Thorntons 22 >£18.47m
Morton Fraser 20 >£108.34m
DLA Piper (Scotland) 17 >£2.83bn
Bellwether Green 16 >£0.3m
DWF 15 >£216.55m
Wright Johnston Mackenzie 14 >£15.51m
Davidson Chalmers Stewart 15 >£5.54m
Vialex 12 >£3.3m
Stronachs 12 >£66.5m
Blackwood Partners 11 >£33.82m
Anderson Strathern 10 >£110.18m
Aberdein Considine 10 N/D
Ledingham Chalmers 7 N/D
Gillespie Macandrew 7 >£5m
ISW Legal 6 >£1.6m
Shoosmiths 5 >£38.45m
Gilson Gray 5 N/D
Grant Smith Law Practice 4 N/D
Curle Stewart 3 N/D
Mackinnons 3 N/D
MacGregor Thomson 3 N/DBannatyne Kirkwood France 3 N/D
Holmes McKillop 3 N/D
BTO 3 N/D
Boyd Legal 2 N/D
Cochran Dickie 2 N/D
Ennova Law 2 N/D
Franchi Law 2 N/D
Miller Samuel Hill Brown 2 N/D
Brunton Miller 2 N/D
BKF & Co 2 N/D
Kerr Stirling 2 N/D
James & George Collie 2 N/D
Hughes Walker 2 N/D
All others were non-Scottish or participated in one deal only.
ACCOUNTANTS No. of deals Value
Anderson Anderson & Brown 62 >£81.8m
Johnston Carmichael 33 >£649.68m
BDO 24 >£294.85m
DC Consulting 23 >£7.24m
KPMG 20 >£511.16m
Consilium 19 >£19.38m
Grant Thornton 14 >£476.2m
French Duncan 14 >£24.6m
Campbell Dallas 12 >£8.9m
PwC 8 >£503.6m
Craig Corporate 8 >£59.47m
RSM 7 N/D
Henderson Loggie 6 >£4.8m
Robertson Craig & Co 6 >£1.5m
Deloitte 5 >£544.41m
DSW Corporate Finance 5 >£1m
Scott-Moncrieff 5 >£0.73m
EY 4 >£509.71m
Chiene & Tait 4 >£5.38m
Wylie & Bisset 3 N/D
Quest Corporate 3 N/D
EQ Chartered Accountants 2 N/D
William Duncan & Co 2 N/D
Robb Ferguson 2 N/D
RJ Hart & Company 2 N/D
Milne Craig 2 N/D
Mackenzie Kerr 2 N/D
Infinity Partnership 2 N/D
Henry Brown & Co 2 N/D
Hazlewoods 2 N/D
All others were non-Scottish or participated in one deal only.
SECTOR BREAKDOWN No. of deals
Banking & Finance 139
Construction 24
Distribution & Wholesale 11
Drinks (+soft) 33
Electronics 53
Engineering 28
Food & Farming 53
Hotels & Leisure 109
Industrial & Manufacturing 109
Marketing & Media 49
Motor 10
Offshore 68
Paper & Packaging 2
Property Dev & Investment 102
Retail 39
Services* 361
Textiles 4
Transport 12
*Note: Services includes - Utilities 62, Healthcare 106. Some deals fall into more
than one sectorA clear-cut approach to help deliver a flawless deal
ANDERSON ANDERSON & BROWN
CORPORATE FINANCE DIVISION
http://www.aab.ukInvestment Bank and its management
team. The firm has a platform that helps
convenience stores and corner shops
cash in on the growth in online grocery
sales. Advisors included DC Consulting,
Blackadders, Davidson Chalmers Stewart,
Burness Paull and CMS.
Leith-based Stampede, which provides
businesses with online tools to help them
connect with customers and grow faster,
secured £1m seed funding from investors
including Techstart Ventures, Galvanise
Capital and angel investor, Judy Wilson.
Visible Capital, a fintech company
founded by three tech veterans also secured
£500,000 from TechStart Ventures and eight
private investors. Preston Rabl, co-founder
of advertising and public relations giant
WPP was appointed to the board, whilst Ian
Steele, former senior partner of Deloitte in
Scotland and Northern Ireland joined the
firm’s advisory board.
Cyan Forensics, the Edinburgh start-up
whose technology helps police investigators
to find evidence faster, secured a further
£1.3m from Triple Point Investment
Management, Mercia, SIS Ventures, the
Scottish Investment Bank and private
investors, to allow it to target new markets in
Europe. The latest funding round brings the
total raised so far to £2.8m. Rob Halliday,
fund manager with SIS Ventures, says: “The
business is extraordinarily well positioned
for significant growth.”
Although the latest deal numbers
highlighted an appetite for transactions, no
Scottish firms floated on the London stock
market during a year when the number of
UK listings also fell to its lowest in 10 years,
according to EY’s IPO tracker.
However, Jennifer Malcolm, legal director
and a specialist in corporate finance
transactions at Pinsent Masons, is optimistic
that IPO and secondary fundraising activity
will step up in 2020 now that elements of
uncertainty around the general election and
Brexit has passed. “I expect that deal activity
will accelerate as companies feel more
confident in executing their growth plans,”
she says.
Donald Munro, head of corporate at
Harper Macleod, says the biggest threat
he now sees to deal activity is speculation
over the Entrepreneurs’ Relief which sees
founders liable to pay only 10 per cent
Capital Gains Tax on exit, up to a limit
of £10m.
“The Prime Minister gave repeated hints
that it could come under review and this
could have a serious impact on deal volume
at a certain level,” he warns. ■