Maven Capital Partners and Mobeus Equity Partners deliver a significant return for investors with the sale of Westway Services

Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”) and Mobeus Equity Partners (“Mobeus”), two of the UK’s leading private equity houses, today announce the successful sale of their investment in Westway Services (“Westway”), a provider of facility solutions to the built environment. The sale to US-based ABM has generated a 6.8x total return on the original investment for Maven and Mobeus clients.

Founded in 2001, Westway provides an integrated range of technical building services on both planned and reactive maintenance contracts. The business has evolved to offer clients a full range of mechanical and electrical engineering services covering infrastructure such as heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and electrical installations.

Maven and Mobeus funded the original MBO of London-based Westway in 2009 and have since helped grow its footprint throughout the UK. At the time of the first investment Westway had a turnover of £9.6 million, an EBITDA of £2.1 million, and employed 38 people from a single office location in West London. Under the leadership of Managing Director Andy Donnell, the company has since achieved year-on-year growth, and following a secondary management buy-out led by Maven in 2014, has significantly grown with forecasted turnover set to exceed £50 million, EBITDA to over £5 million, and now employs 535 people across its UK offices in Ruislip (West London), Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, and Northampton. The success was achieved by a proven track record of delivering a reliable and high level of service for its blue-chip client base.

Andrew Symmonds, Investment Director at Maven said: "Maven has consistently seen the potential of Westway’s business model, having backed the management team on two occasions, and today’s sale, which delivers a healthy 6.8x total return on the original investment, demonstrates the high regard in which the business is held amongst its client base. Our refinancing of Westway last year helped the business capitalise further on its projected growth in the sector, whilst providing the continuity needed to allow it to continue its organic growth strategy and to pursue planned geographical expansion into other parts of the UK. The growth in turnover, profit and employees is an excellent example of how Maven’s ability to offer flexible funding solutions can help businesses like Westway fulfil their potential.”

Bob Henry, Partner at Mobeus, said: “Mobeus has always been a keen supporter of Westway and its management team, who have built an extremely strong business by over-delivering on customer expectations. They have achieved this by creating a well-trained and highly motivated workforce. This has been no mean feat during a period of very rapid growth. It is clear that this management philosophy was one of the attractions of Westway to ABM.”

Andy Donnell, Managing Director of Westway Services added: “Since their initial investment in 2009, Maven have supported the management whole heartedly to achieve their goals. They have worked with the team to develop a clearly defined strategy and allowed them the autonomy to execute it. The opportunity for Westway to move into the ABM group provides an excellent vehicle for it to continue its impressive growth.”

Lawyers for Westway was Jonathan Watkins, Christopher Wilson Alexandra Holden from DLA. Lawyers for Maven and Mobeus were Guy Constant, Timothy Coles and Madeleine Mould from Blake Morgan. Advising Maven and Mobeus on the transaction were Graham Carberry, Jeremy Furniss and Tom Smith from Livingstone Capital Partners.

Peppermint Secures Major Investment and Strengthens Board in a Bid to Become the Dominant IT Player in the Legal and Dispute Management Market
 

Peppermint Technology, the award-winning legal and dispute management technology provider, has received a multi-million pound investment from leading venture capital firm Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) that will allow it to accelerate its growth and disruption of the legal and dispute management market.

Peppermint currently has more than 5,000 users across 30 legal and dispute management firms, including the likes of Blake Morgan, Penningtons Manches and Ombudsman Services. Launched in 2010, Peppermint has doubled its revenue in each of the last three years and now has 60 staff operating from its Nottingham base.

In addition to securing funding of over £10 million, Peppermint has strengthened its board with the appointment of Neville Davis as Chairman and Mike Kent as CFO. A highly experienced businessman, Davis was the senior independent non-executive director at legal software supplier Tikit prior to its sale to BT and was previously CEO of Compel and Chair of Amor and Fourth. Kent was previously the CFO at both Tikit and legal digital dictation specialist BigHand.

SEP’s investment was led by Gordon Beveridge, Director of SEP. Peppermint’s original investor, OLM Systems, who has been instrumental in Peppermint’s success to date, remains a shareholder.

Peppermint's Platform, based on the Microsoft Dynamics Platform, combines all the different software applications required by a legal and dispute management firm.  The Platform can share data across a sophisticated suite of built in collaboration tools allowing firms to transform the delivery of services and improve the efficiency of their back office operations.  Peppermint was the first new software entrant to the legal and dispute management market in 20 years and it has continuously aimed to innovate and provide a software platform that far outstrips what any other legal and dispute management vendor can do.

Arlene Adams, the founder and CEO of Peppermint, says: “We have grown rapidly over the past five years and are seeing increasing interest from legal and dispute management firms seeking an innovative industry platform. This funding will enable us to invest further in our product and our people to meet that demand. We are pleased to have secured SEP, with their significant experience of supporting high growth businesses, as investors and look forward to working with them to achieve Peppermint’s full potential as the dominant player in the legal and dispute management market.”

Gordon Beveridge of SEP said: “We have been very impressed with the achievements and growth of Peppermint to date. This investment, together with the appointments of Neville Davis and Mike Kent, will underpin the future growth of the business enabling it to continue to develop innovative, market-leading disruptive software.”
 
Grant Thornton advised Peppermint on the transaction.

The Tab fuels US expansion with $3m investment from Balderton Capital

The Tab, the world’s largest platform for student journalists, is expanding across North America - with $3 million funding from Europe’s leading venture firm, Balderton Capital.

The company opened an office of 16 editors in New York City in September, and now has 25 college sites in North America, including every Ivy League school.

The Tab is spending the funds on widening its American expansion, and building a technology platform which will create the biggest reporting network in the world.

This year The Tab has published 2650 journalists, and their local stories have generated more than 5,000 pageviews on average. Tab sites attract more than 200,000 sessions per month on average from their very loyal readerships.

Co-founder and Editor-in-chief Jack Rivlin said: “The Tab is much more than a publisher - we are building the largest talent network on the planet by making the newsroom experience possible anywhere.

“Traditional media is out of touch with young people. By combining the ease of social with the quality of professional media, we’re producing original and incredibly engaging stories at a much lower cost.”

The Tab is increasingly using tech to provide journalism training and motivation to its grassroots network. Reporters live-chat with professionals to get quick editorial guidance and receive automated journalism tips and audience figures.

And the company is developing a dashboard which identifies the most promising writers from the start, based on how their writing and traffic data stacks up against past users, and then invests in their talent.

The site’s grassroots network has been responsible for major exclusives, including the unmasking of a teenager who joined ISIS, and in recent weeks, coverage of clashes between student protesters and administrators at Ivy League schools.

Balderton General Partner and Tab Board member Suranga Chandratillake said: “The Tab is a technology-powered cultural phenomenon.  The team has built a unique way to scale authentic, engaging grassroots journalism across the UK and has shown that the same model works in the US too. We’re proud to have the opportunity to work with George, Jack and the rest of their team as they continue on their mission to bring us all better news.”