Acquisitions Archives - Achieve Corporation

Markross121_ January 4, 2023 No Comments

Project Mercury

Overseas Company seeks to secure a foothold in the UK market within the specialist and general engineering sector.

The Company is seeking to add four bolt-on additions to its current portfolio before the end of September 2023.

With a billion-dollar turnover, the Company is asset and cash-rich. It has a proven methodology for its acquisitions enabling it to complete deals and due diligence in the minimum time frame.

The Company is looking for several smaller businesses with a turnover of circa £5 Million that can be grouped together to take advantage of the many projects and contracts that the Parent Company needs to fulfil.

The Company is flexible in its approach to acquisitions and will support cash sales, MBO and MBIs.

If You Feel Your Business Would Be of Value to Our Clients, please contact our Senior Partner, Mark Roberts, at mark@achieve-corporation.com.

Markross121_ November 16, 2022 No Comments

Binance to Buy FTX in Major Cryptocurrency Exchange Merger

Public squabble between the two largest offshore exchanges’ bosses led to run on FTX and forced sale

The two largest offshore cryptocurrency exchanges are merging, after a week of public squabbling between Binance’s chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, and FTX’s boss, Sam Bankman-Fried, triggered a bank run at the latter’s exchange and an embarrassing forced sale on Tuesday.

“This afternoon, FTX asked for our help,” tweeted Zhao. “There is a significant liquidity crunch. To protect users, we signed a non-binding letter of intent, intending to fully acquire FTX.com.”

The news was confirmed in a tweet by Bankman-Fried. He said: “Things have come full circle, and FTX.com’s first, and last, investors are the same: we have come to an agreement on a strategic transaction with Binance for FTX.com pending DD etc.”

The deal will see FTX being “fully acquired” by Binance, in return for covering the cash crunch at the embattled exchange. Further terms were not disclosed by either party.

Both Binance.US and FTX.US, the associated American regulated exchanges of the two companies, will remain independent.

Bankman-Fried is a major donor to the US Democratic party, and FTX was a top-20 contributor to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, giving over $5m. Bankman-Fried is reported to have donated about $40m this year in the run-up to today’s midterm elections.

The two chief executives are among the most prominent players in the industry, known by their initials – CZ and SBF – and each capable of moving markets with just a tweet. They have worked together in the past, with Binance investing in FTX at the exchange’s inception.

KKR snaps up UK infrastructure investor John Laing in £2bn deal

John Laing board to unanimously recommend KKR’s offer to shareholders to take firm private.

The private-equity firm KKR has agreed to buy the UK infrastructure investor John Laing, which has stakes in Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool and a retirement homebuilding project with McCarthy & Stone, in a deal valued at about £2bn.

The takeover values the London-listed firm at 403p a share, which represents a 27% premium on the closing price of John Laing stock on 5 May, the day before it confirmed it was in talks with KKR.

John Laing has invested in more than 150 projects and businesses since it was founded, across a range of sectors including transport and energy.

The firm, which was floated in February 2015, owns assets including schools, hospitals and infrastructure predominantly in the US and Australia as well as in Europe.

The investor was involved in the 2013 redevelopment of Alder Hey, which was funded through a private finance initiative, and as a result still holds a 40% stake in the hospital.

John Laing said its board intended to unanimously recommend KKR’s offer to its shareholders to take the firm private, adding that it represented a fair and reasonable value for the company.

KKR has also proposed a £175m cash injection into John Laing’s pension fund, accompanied by a further £50m in 18 months.

John Laing’s shares rose by 11% in morning trading on Wednesday, to 402p, just below the offer price.

Sony Music buys UK podcast producer Somethin’ Else

Sony Music is latest after Spotify, Amazon and Apple to try to cash in on boom in audio listening.

Sony Music has acquired the UK’s largest independent podcast producer, Somethin’ Else, which makes David Tennant’s interview series and The Sun King, David Dimbleby’s deep dive into the life of Rupert Murdoch.

Home to artists from Beyoncé and AC/DC to Dolly Parton, Sony is using the acquisition to spearhead the launch of a new global podcast division.

“Our new global podcast division is key to our plans for a fast-paced expansion in the market, diversifying our creative abilities and providing a home for exciting content that will benefit millions of podcast lovers around the world,” said Dennis Kooker, the president of global digital business and US sales at Sony Music Entertainment, the Sony subsidiary that struck the deal.

Companies ranging from Spotify and Amazon to Apple have been snapping up now increasingly scarce prime podcast producers and platforms to cash in on a boom in audio listening and diversify away from a reliance on music streaming.

Buyout of AOL, Yahoo signals PE’s biggest bet on digital media

Apollo Global Management has for years wanted to become a major player in the media world. The firm finally got its wish Monday.

After days of speculation, Apollo has agreed to acquire a 90% stake in Verizon’s portfolio of digital news sites, including Yahoo and AOL, from Verizon for about $5 billion.

The deal marks private equity’s biggest bet yet on the embattled digital media industry, which has struggled to compete with Google and Facebook for a share of the digital advertising market. And it puts Apollo, an investor engulfed in controversy for the past year-plus over co-founder Leon Black’s connections to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, in control of a collection of news sites after spending years betting on legacy media.

“It’s a textbook Apollo deal, They’ve been interested in media space for a while, judging by their past bidding activity. Apollo probably likes the space since many other investors are avoiding it.”

Indeed, Apollo’s history with media companies dates back years. But that history hasn’t always been successful.

Private equity brushes off past club deal woes with $34B Medline buyout

Private equity’s biggest guns are once again showing they can have record-setting buyout firepower when they work as a team.

After recently backing away from so-called club deals that bring together multiple firms, the industry now has its largest acquisition in years. The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman have joined forces to acquire Medline in a deal reportedly worth around $34 billion, including debt.

The deal comes after US private equity firms amassed approximately $721 billion in dry powder as of June 30, 2020 following years of record fundraising outputs. And it may signal that club deals involving multiple buyout shops have returned after they fell out of favor following a series of high-profile flops.

The Medline deal also marks the largest private equity buyout by value in at least a decade, according to PitchBook data. So far in 2021, private equity firms have struck 13 deals in the US worth $5 billion or more, surpassing last year’s total of 11.

HelloFresh inks $277M deal for US meal delivery startup

Germany’s HelloFresh has agreed to buy Illinois-based meal delivery business Factor75 for up to $277 million, as European food companies turn their attention to the US to fuel growth.

The deal comes just a few weeks after Nestlé completed its $1.5 billion acquisition of New York-based meal delivery startup Freshly. In June, Just Eat Takeaway.com fought off a rival bid from Uber to buy Grubhub in an all-stock transaction worth about $7.3 billion.

Factor75 will join HelloFresh’s existing US portfolio including EveryPlate and Green Chef, which it bought in 2018. The deal will give HelloFresh its first office in Chicago, as well as four production and fulfillment facilities.

Frankfurt-listed HelloFresh is currently the largest meal-kit provider in the US in terms of market share, reportedly surpassing Blue Apron in 2018. It logged 2.5 million active customers in the US during Q3 2020, a near 70% increase year-over-year. The pandemic has created a surge in demand for meal kits as shoppers seek alternatives to grocery stores. The meal kit market is expected to reach $14.8 billion by 2025, representing a 10.6% compound annual growth rate, according to PitchBook’s Q3 2020 foodtech report.

Founded in 2013, Factor75 specializes in healthy ready-to-eat meals. It secured $12.5 million in May in a round led by Marcy Venture Partners. Factor75 is expected to generate revenue of around $100 million in 2020.

Bertelsmann set to buy US publisher Simon & Schuster

Penguin Random House owner Bertelsmann has agreed to acquire New York-based publisher Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS for over $2 billion, Reuters reported.

Following the deal, the German group will hold nearly a third of the US publishing market by revenue. Bertelsmann beat out Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and French media group Vivendi in an auction for the company, which ViacomCBS put up for sale in March in order to refocus on its core assets.

Rival book publishers, including News Corp-owned HarperCollins, have raised antitrust concerns about the acquisition, according to the Financial Times. Critics have said that Bertelsmann could exert too much power in specific genres, particularly hardcover fiction. Simon & Schuster publishes some of the world’s bestselling authors, including Dan Brown and Stephen King.

Through Penguin Random House, Bertelsmann is already the largest global book publisher by revenue, reporting €3.6 billion (about $4.3 billion) in 2019. The group agreed last December to acquire the remaining shares of Penguin from UK-based peer Pearson for $675 million, giving Bertelsmann full ownership.

UK revisits IPO rules to entice tech founders

The UK government said Thursday it will review the rules around initial public offerings as it looks to make post-Brexit Britain more appealing to tech founders seeking to take their companies public.

The review includes measures that would give founders more influence over their companies upon listing, including the allowance of dual-class share structures that give some shareholders—notably founders—more voting rights per share than others.

Free float rules are also under review. Currently, companies listing on the London Stock Exchange must make 25% of their shares public. A lower free float threshold would let entrepreneurs maintain more control after going public.

Not everyone is a fan of the changes suggested.

“Traditionally, many institutional investors are wary of dual-class structures in the UK because they value the principle of one share, one vote,” said Claire Keast-Butler, a London-based partner with law firm Cooley who herself has been advocating for the use of dual-class shares. “They think that it is potentially bad for corporate governance because they’re putting too much power in the hands of a founder, or founders, rather than the shareholders as a whole.”

Keast-Butler said there has been a lot of resistance in the investor community to changing the system. Many fear rule changes could make founders less accountable. A case study often pointed to by critics is WeWork. The co-working giant imploded as it was preparing to go public in 2019, largely due to founder Adam Neumann taking advantage of a multi-class voting structure to wield outsized influence and thus eliminating any checks and balances on the company’s governance.

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