Good morning Eurohubsters, Craig McGlashan here with Wednesday’s Dealflow.
We’ve been writing a lot about private equity firms boosting their presence in London, with one of the most recent being Tikehau Capital’s head of private equity, Emmanuel Laillier, moving from Paris to the UK capital. I caught up with him to find out some of the reasons behind the move.
Beyond Brexit. You can read the whole interview and hear the motivations behind Laillier’s switch as well as Tikehau’s plans for growing the London office here.
But I was also interested to note that at a time when the UK is suffering from political and market turmoil, and that the “long-term impact of Brexit on the UK economy is less clear, the immediate impact it has had on the private equity industry in London is most likely behind us”, according to Laillier.
“In my view, there have been two key implications on the sector in London to date – firstly, it has created some tangible regulatory constraints,” he said. “For example, I am no longer able to vote on an investment committee for a vehicle that is registered in the European Union if I am not physically located in the EU. Secondly, US investors are increasingly viewing the UK and the EU as regions that are marked by political instability.
“That said, we continue to see high levels of investment and attractive opportunities in these regions, particularly as the current level of the euro and pound versus the US dollar is also a good entry point.”
Here’s the link to the full interview.
Human resources. Main Capital announced that its portfolio company BCS HR Group has acquired two Dutch software companies: Medisoft and Tasper.
BCS is a human resource management and payroll software provider. The deals for Medisoft and Tasper are the second and third add-on acquisitions since the investment from Main Capital in April 2022. The deals follow the acquisition of Apployed in July.
You can read more about the acquisitions here.
The deal is in keeping with a trend we’ve seen for private equity interest in companies related to human resources management.
Earlier in the week, we wrote about Limerston Capital portfolio company Empowering People Group completing the acquisition of Learning Nexus.
Empowering People Group, headquartered in London, is a provider of digitally enabled HR services and advice.
Learning Nexus is a London-headquartered provider of compliance-led online learning services to corporates, public sector organisations and non-profits.
Oil be back. The European IPO market has been sluggish this year, in large part thanks to wider market turmoil from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its effect on energy and other markets.
But that has also led to a jump in oil and gas prices, which could mean at least one large listing is on the cards.
Ithaca Energy, a North Sea oil and gas producer, said yesterday that it is planning a listing on the London Stock Exchange.
Reuters quoted a bookrunner on the deal who said the listing could be worth $300 million to $500 million and that pre-marketing was due to begin on 25 October.
Wine time. Finally, it’s probably a little early to be thinking about wine (well, I guess it depends what time zone you’re in), but I did want to mention a deal related to the drink.
MCH Private Equity announced that it has made an investment in Grupo Agrovin.
Agrovin is a Spanish producer and distributor of natural ingredients, systems and technology for the oenological sector. The group, headquartered in Alcázar de San Juan, has a presence in over 20 countries including Italy, France, Portugal, Romania and the US. The investment from MCH aims to back the group’s international expansion.
According to a paper prepared in July by KPMG for the Spanish Wine Interprofessional Organisation (OIVE), Spanish wine exports are expected to increase by 40 percent, reaching €4.3 billion by 2027.
This is one deal that I’d be more than happy to research outside office hours.
That’s it from me today – I’ll see you again tomorrow.
Cheers,
Craig
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