Mobeus generates 40% IRR on Tessella sale

Mobeus Equity Partners, the UK small-cap investor, has sold analytics software services and consulting company Tessella to Altran Group. The French engineering consultancy’s purchase sees Mobeus generate 2.9 x its money and a 42% IRR on the deal, while retaining part of Tessella’s business.

Mobeus originally backed Tessella in 2012, when it invested £5.6m as a combined debt and equity package to back the £16.7m MBO of the business. During its stewardship, Mobeus introduced Dr Steve Curl, a Mobeus Operating Partner, as Chairman. The three and a half-year hold period has seen revenue increase 43% from £18.5m in 2012 to £26.5m forecast for the current financial year.

Tessella was founded in 1980 in Oxfordshire and has become a global business. It opened its first international office in The Netherlands in 2001, and launched in the US in 2003, where it now operates three offices. In 2011 Tessella received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for its work on preserving the integrity of digital information over long periods of time, irrespective of numerous changes in technology. This data archiving business, called Preservica, has been carved out of the sale to Altran, to be retained and developed by Tessella’s existing shareholders, including Mobeus.

This is Mobeus’s eighth exit through sales to trade buyers and private equity firms in less than two years. The eight realisations have delivered a 3.0 x money multiple for Mobeus-advised clients of £110.5 million in proceeds from £37.0 million at investment cost.

Guy Blackburn, director at Mobeus, commented:

“Our partnership approach to investing has worked exceptionally well at Tessella. Backed by Mobeus, Alan Gaby has led a highly professional management team through a period of sustained sales and profit growth. This success has resulted in the expansion of Tessella and a great return for all shareholders - a winning combination for everyone involved. Mobeus is looking forward to continuing this success story with Preservica, which was demerged from Tessella pre-sale.”

Alan Gaby, chief executive of Tessella, commented:

"Mobeus has proven to be an excellent financial partner, from helping to construct the management buy-out, and over the past three years providing advice and support to Tessella's board. Mobeus has always delivered on their promises and worked collaboratively with management, without ever seeking to unnecessarily control or interfere with operational matters. They have played a key role in Tessella's success. Now the coming together with Altran Group will provide Tessella access to global clients, in new sectors, on an international basis, which will in turn allow Tessella to realise its full growth potential."




PUMA INVESTMENTS COMPLETES FURTHER CARE HOME DEALS


Puma Investments announces that Puma VCT and EIS portfolio companies have entered into transactions, totalling £13.7 million, to construct several healthcare assets across the UK.  

Three of the latest transactions involve the Puma EIS Portfolio Service company, Dunkeld Trading Limited. Dunkeld Trading is providing project management services in connection with the development of an 88 bed care home in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire; a supported living accommodation development in Bolton, Lancashire; and a new purpose-built 80 bed care home in Dover, Kent.  The fourth is Kingsmead House, a £3.8 million loan to finance the post development stabilisation period for a 40 bed nursing and dementia care home in Mytchett, Surrey.

These transactions come on the back of a £6.8 million transaction in Hamilton, Scotland, and a £5.8 million transaction in Mill Hill, London,  completed earlier this year, taking the total value of healthcare transactions in 2016 to over £26 million.

Commenting Eliot Kaye, Investment Director at Puma Investments, said: “We have been involved with a number of transactions in the care home space.  A core part of our investment strategy is focused on sourcing asset-backed investments such as these, in order to mitigate risk, while at the same time we are confident that these deals can offer an attractive return for our investors.

“Small and medium-sized businesses are still finding it difficult to access the funding they need; as a consequence, we are seeing many established companies coming to us for funding.  We have a high quality pipeline of potential investments and can be flexible about where we invest, which is reflected in the variety of deals, both in terms of geography and business sector.”



Medical Records System ‘Patients Know Best’ announces investment of £3.5m from Balderton Capital and Maxfield Capital
                                                                                                
Patients Know Best, the world’s only fully patient-controlled online medical records system, has today raised £3.5m of investment. The round was led by Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s largest technology investors, with support from existing investor Maxfield Capital, a venture fund with a global footprint.

The highly secure online tool enables patients to better organise, manage and control access to their own healthcare records. It also saves the time of physicians and doctors by enabling secure online consultations, remote monitoring and shared care planning.

To date, Patients Know Best has customers in over 60 medical institutions across seven countries, with Germany and Russia as the next markets to go live. The company already has staff in nine countries, and the investment will be used to hire more developers and clinicians to support global roll-out.

Patients Know Best is one of the first social enterprise businesses. As defined by B Corp, these companies treat the interests of employees, communities and environment as equal to those of shareholders.

Balderton Capital’s investment builds on a £1m investment led by Maxfield Capital in November 2014.

Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, founder and CEO of Patients Know Best said:

“We built Patients Know Best to treat patients the way we ourselves wanted to be treated – with the patient in control. What we proved over the last few years is that this is the best way for every patient to be treated. Patient control improves safety, raises quality, cuts costs and makes patients happier. Our customers across hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, local governments, non-profit patient organisations, social care providers and prisons all benefit from putting the patient in control.”

Mark Evans, partner at Balderton Capital said:

“We believe that digital healthcare starts with putting patients in control of the data. After years attempting to manage data from the top down, it is now clear that the only scalable model for sharing data across healthcare providers puts the patients at the centre. Patients Know Best have developed a patient-centric approach that is scalable across both national and international jurisdictions."

Alexander Lazarev, partner at Maxfield Capital said:

“Maxfield Capital has been working with Patients Know Best for over a year and, in that time, we’ve seen outstanding rates of growth and global traction. The company is now winning contracts against major competitors across the world and, with this investment, we look forward to helping the company achieve its ambitions into the future."



 London bound British entrepreneurs spending nearly £6,000 a year unnecessarily to pass time in between meetings

• Entrepreneurs and business people are spending around three hours a week in cafés, hotel lobbies, and clubs in between business meetings
• Entrepreneurs and business people typically spend around £700 a week in London (excluding travel) of which 16% is deemed unnecessary and simply to pass time in between meetings
• New business members clubs are the smarter alternative for many. Are we seeing a paradigm shift in the way people meet and work in London?

London bound British entrepreneurs and business people without a London base in which to work and meet are spending £5,824 a year at cafés, hotel lobbies, bars and restaurants unnecessarily to pass time in between business meetings. This is according to new research¹ by London’s leading business members club and meeting space, The Clubhouse, which revealed that entrepreneurs are also wasting up to three hours a week of productivity (or 156 hours a year) in cafés, hotel lobbies, clubs, bars and restaurants in between business meetings.

Whilst recent innovations in mobile technology and cloud computing allow people to work and meet in a more flexible way, contributing to a significant growth in ‘cappuccino commerce’, The Clubhouse’s research showed that in an average week, entrepreneurs spend around £700 a week in London (excluding travel) of which 16% is deemed unnecessary and simply to pass time in between meetings.

Three quarters (74%) of respondents suggested they would be interested in saving money in between meetings by joining a member’s club specifically designed for business people.

In an average week how much do you spend on the following items on business trips in London?

 Source: The Clubhouse (November 2015)

Adam Blaskey, Founder and CEO of The Clubhouse, said: “London is the epicentre of British business and entrepreneurship.  Our research has identified a growing trend in the number of entrepreneurs and business people coming to London to do business but who are currently squandering large sums of money and wasting valuable time in often uncomfortable, noisy and expensive locations. This is exactly why we launched The Clubhouse: to provide a professional, business focused alternative in which to work or meet all of your business contacts such as clients, colleagues, investors, suppliers and partners. As London’s leading business members club and meeting space we now provide a London base and the smarter alternative to a London office for over 250 companies of all shapes and size and from many industry sectors.”

With two locations in Mayfair, The Clubhouse is planning to open a network of Clubhouses across London and at the same time broaden its range of services by offering longer term, dedicated desks alongside its hot-desks and flexible meeting areas.  To accelerate its expansion, The Clubhouse has launched an equity crowdfunding round on Seedrs to open three new locations: one in St James’s and two in the City. As part of this expansion, the company is aiming to raise £750,000 from its members and external investors on the Seedrs crowd funding platform which runs until December 20th.

Adam Blaskey continues: “By using the Seedrs platform we are delighted to allow our members and new investors to contribute and share in our future success. We are in a growing market where in the UK alone, there are over 5 million companies with only around 200,000 currently using flexible workspaces.”

Interested parties can view the campaign details here.



DUNEDIN-BACKED HAWKSFORD CONTINUES TO EXPAND ITS GLOBAL CAPABILITIES

Trust Licence enables the business to offer full range of services in the Caribbean region

Dunedin backed Hawksford, the leading international corporate, private client and funds business, has announced that it has received formal permission to operate in the Caribbean region, the latest milestone in its active global expansion programme. It has been awarded a full Trust Licence that will enable the business to provide a wide range of trust services in the Cayman Islands.

This move reinforces the company’s ongoing commitment to client choice through building a network of jurisdictions around the globe. Following this expansion into the Cayman Islands, Hawksford can now offer a choice of fiduciary services to clients from Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.

Hawksford was backed by UK mid-market private equity house Dunedin in October 2008. Since then, it has pursued an active internationalisation strategy, establishing its Asian presence in Singapore in March 2014, when it acquired Janus Corporate Solutions, and opening an office in Hong Kong in February 2015.

David Williams from Dunedin, who sits on Hawksford’s board, commented: “Hawksford’s expansion into the Cayman Islands is a significant development for the company and further strengthens its position as a truly global business. Over the past seven years Dunedin has worked alongside the management team to internationalise the business and we are delighted to see them establish a firm foothold in the Caribbean region. This is an exciting period for Hawksford, - having completed five acquisitions in the last five years, the business is growing at an impressive rate.”