The Birmingham office of a national corporate finance firm has helped advise the management of an international recruitment giant on its £234 million buyout by a US investment group.
Catalyst Corporate Finance helped NES Global Talent with a tertiary buy-out backed by US investment group AEA Investors LP.
NES, which has an office in Birmingham, places engineers and project managers with blue chip clients including Shell, BP and Exxon Mobil, principally in the oil and gas industries and also in the power and infrastructure sectors.
The buy-out was led by NES chief executive Neil Tregarthen, group finance director Stephen Buckley and group managing director Simon Cotton.
Originally backed by Bridgepoint, the business was then bought by Graphite in 2006 as a secondary buy-out.
NES’ new owner AEA was founded in 1968 by some of America’s richest families including the Rockefellers and banking giant SG Warburg and Co as a private investment vehicle.
Mark Humphries, partner at Catalyst, said: “This is an important deal in the private equity market.
“The business attracted a lot of interest from private equity investors clearly demonstrating there is a high level of appetite in the £100 million plus equity cheque market.”
In the year to the end of October turnover at NES grew by more than 30 per cent to £380 million and ebitda rose to £16.8 million.
It employs 450 people across 32 offices worldwide.
