Corbett Keeling announces that private equity investor Alcuin Capital Partners (Alcuin) has acquired a majority stake in Applied Market Information Ltd (AMI) from its original founders and shareholders whom Corbett Keeling advised.

Corbett Keeling is an established corporate finance firm with a track record of over 20 years guiding owners through the process of selling their businesses, advising management teams on buyouts and buy-ins, and providing specialist corporate finance advice.

With offices in the United Kingdom and North America, AMI is a leading provider of information services to the global plastics industry through syndicated reports, databases, digital magazines, consulting and conferences. The company has grown steadily since it was founded in 1986. This year the company will hold over 40 conferences for the plastics industry in Europe, the USA and the Far East – more than any other competitor world-wide.

The team at Corbett Keeling, led by Jim Keeling, Francois Barou and Matt Dixon, advised the founders of AMI on the investment by Alcuin, which completed on 22 May 2015. The founders will continue to be actively involved in the business and have retained a significant minority stake.

Mark Storey, partner at Alcuin, said: “We are delighted we were introduced to AMI by Corbett Keeling and are now investing alongside the current directors to support the continued success of AMI. This is a dynamic business that has a very strong reputation in the plastics industry for the quality of the information it provides and the events that it organises. Alcuin has always targeted ambitious, growth companies with the ability to compete on a global basis and AMI definitely fits the bill.”

Andrew Reynolds, co-founder and director of AMI, said: “We really welcome the opportunity of joining Alcuin and moving the company forward in the next stages of its development. To arrive at this point we were advised over a period of months by the team from corporate financiers, Corbett Keeling; many thanks to them for getting what we believe was the best result from the best buyer for our business.”

John Horgan, co-founder and director of AMI, added: “Not only was Corbett Keeling’s advice always timely, to the point and in our best interest but, crucially, they had outstanding knowledge and understanding of the potential buyers, whether trade or financial and UK or overseas.”

Jim Keeling, chairman of Corbett Keeling, said: “Alcuin, as a new owner, is a great match with the AMI business. The transaction, a partial exit for our clients, the founders and former owners, enables them to take significant value off the table now while also participating in the future upside of what we and they see as a strong business with much growth ahead of it. We are delighted at the successful outcome.”

Three Crowdcube-funded businesses reach the final of Richard Branson’s ‘Pitch to Rich’ competition

CauliRice, Fourex and JustPark are in the running for business support from the team at Virgin

Three businesses that successfully raised finance on leading investment crowdfunding platform Crowdcube are within reach of a unique opportunity to be mentored by Sir Richard Branson’s team of business advisors. CauliRice, Fourex and JustPark have beaten 2,400 rivals to make it to the final of Virgin’s ‘Pitch to Rich’ competition, which is searching for the UK’s most innovative and exciting new start-ups and small businesses.

The nine finalists were chosen through a combination of votes from the UK public and selection by the judging panel, which included Jo Malone (perfume entrepreneur), Jon Oringer (Shutterstock founder), David Gandy (model and start-up investor) and Justine Roberts (Mumsnet co-founder).

There is a Crowdcube-funded business in every one of the three categories: CauliRice is competing in the Start-up category, Fourex in New things and JustPark in Grow.

The founders are now preparing to pitch their business idea directly to Sir Richard Branson on 26 June. He will select a winner in each category, who will receive thousands of pounds worth of marketing support and business development from Virgin’s professional business advisors.

 Caulirice (founder Gem Misa) is a low calorie, low carb alternative to rice, with 80% fewer calories than white rice but the same taste. The company has overfunded twice on Crowdcube, raising a total of £932,730 from 592 investors.

 Fourex (founder Jeff Paterson) is a self-service multi-currency note and coin exchange machine which uses image recognition technology to automatically identify and exchange currencies from over 150 countries. The company overfunded to 245%, raising more than £673k from 424 investors. 

 JustPark (founder Anthony Eskinazi) is a pioneering app and website that connects owners of parking spaces with drivers looking for a convenient spot. It more than tripled its investment target of £1m, raising over £3.5m from 2,702 investors. This is the highest amount invested in a company on Crowdcube, and the largest amount of money ever invested in a British technology business through equity crowdfunding. 

 Luke Lang, co-founder of Crowdcube, says: “This is a real testament to the high quality and calibre of businesses that choose to raise capital on Crowdcube. It also proves how credible the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ really is – the investors’ belief in these companies and their founders has been well and truly validated by the UK public and some very high-profile experts. For us, it’s really exciting to see that Crowdcube is helping to grow award-winning businesses.”