We backed Fishawack Health’s existing management team, led by CEO Oliver Dennis, in a £38m management buyout in 2017. The team had clear international ambitions, and partnering with LDC gave them the additional capital and expertise to deliver a rapid buy and build strategy.

We provided a further £18.5m in follow-on funding over three years to help the business extend its footprint across North America via acquisition, tripling its annual revenues.

Established in 2001, Fishawack Health is a UK-headquartered global healthcare communications agency. The firm’s strategic and scientific focus makes it ideally placed to solve complex brand, portfolio and enterprise level challenges for healthcare and pharmaceutical organisations.

A clear international vision

In January 2017, we backed CEO Oliver Dennis and his management team to deliver on their international vision for the business, in a buyout which valued the firm at £38m.

Fishawack Health already had a strong track record for growth and saw an opportunity for international expansion by delivering on global briefs from their clients that operate in multiple geographies. The leadership were also looking to diversify its service offering to provide more holistic healthcare communications services to its customers.

Partnering with LDC gave the management team the capital and expertise to deliver on their ambitious international growth strategy.

Follow on funding for funds five acquisitions

During our three-year partnership, we provided a further £18.5m of follow on funding to support the management team to complete five key international acquisitions, including US-based 2e Creative, in August 2019.

Between 2017 and 2020, the business increased revenues by 300% and headcount by 250%, firmly cementing itself as a market leader in North America and Europe.

Today, Fishawack Health is truly international with 14 offices in Europe and the US and more than 850 employees. The organisation serves more than 100 customers across 300 different drug compounds, including all of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies and a range of innovative biotech and medical device companies.

Giacom is a specialist cloud services marketplace which provides cloud services to SMEs via the Information Technology Consultants (‘ITCs’) community. It is the UK’s largest independent cloud portal, with a highly specialised and large-scale distribution platform. Its cloud platform services over 70,000 end-user SMEs and over 1 million individual licenses, via its 3,400 ITC clients.

Founded in Hull in 1999 as an internet service provider, Giacom now offers a one-stop platform for all the cloud software, infrastructure and IT support services that an ITC might require to transition an SME client into a public or private cloud environment, and then manage them on an ongoing basis.

Backing management

We backed the management buyout of Giacom in May 2016 to help the business consolidate its market-leading position and capitalise on the increasing demand for cloud-based solutions among the micro-SME market.

LDC helped Founder Nick Marshall strengthen his management team with three senior director appointments.

Mitrefinch provides user-friendly, cutting edge products across integrated time and attendance, payroll, HR and access control with sophisticated analytic capability. The company supports 4,400 customers in over 80 countries to increase productivity, profitability and manage their workforce effectively.

Investment in technology

In 2016, we invested over £20m in Mitrefinch and since then we’ve supported the management team to build out the company’s software capabilities from a largely on-premise product to a suite of market leading cloud-based solutions generating recurring SaaS revenues.

International expansion

Mitrefinch extended its international presence through both organic and acquisitive growth, including the strategic purchase of US-based Advance Systems America. The business has increased international sales to account for 44 per cent of turnover in the current financial year with established operations in Ireland, the US, Canada and Australia.

LDC worked alongside The NEC Group’s management team, led by CEO Paul Thandi CBE, to back a four-year transformation programme. This initiative enhanced sites, facilities and customer experience and broadened the range of events across the Group’s portfolio, supported by significant capital investment. In 2018 LDC exited its investment to Blackstone and reinvested to continue to support the next stage of the company’s growth journey.

Founded in 1976, the NEC has grown into the UK’s live-events business of choice for organisers, exhibitors and visitors, playing host to over seven million guests and 750 events every year.

The Group boasts Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, the International Convention Centre, the Genting Arena and Arena Birmingham among its assets as well as caterer Amadeus and national ticketing agency The Ticket Factory. The NEC is also due to host nine sports as part of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

In 2015, we backed the management buyout of The NEC Group and supported the delivery of further strategic organic and acquisition-led initiatives across all business channels, both in the UK and overseas.

Headquartered in London and with a second office in New York, leading software platform RightSpend supports global brands in the assessment of their marketing activity in real time, to help save and optimise marketing spend and manage agency relationships more effectively.

Backing Management

In September 2020 we invested more than £17m into RightSpend to help the management team to drive organic growth, further develop its software as a service (SaaS) offering and continue to expand into new international markets.

LDC is backing the business’ experienced management team, led by CEO Iain Seers, who has more than 25 years industry experience.

Iain Seers, CEO of RightSpend, said: “We have developed a unique market-leading software tool to help companies better manage their marketing agency relationships and deliver material cost savings and transparency around spend. While we have grown significantly in recent years, there is a real opportunity for us to scale quickly, drive our technology development faster, as well as expand into new geographies.

Microlease’s specialist testing equipment and solutions are used across a broad range of industries including telecommunications, semi-conductors, aerospace, defence, automotive and manufacturing.

Expansion through acquisition

LDC backed the £30m management buyout of the business in 2006.

The management team subsequently bought and integrated six complementary businesses in the UK, US and Europe, growing revenues and profits almost six-fold over the 10 years to 2016.

The management team at Amberon always had ambitious plans for growth, and our support allowed the team to grow their business more quickly than they anticipated, all while protecting the Amberon culture. The £25m funding package we provided in 2017, alongside HSBC, kick-started a partnership which super-charged the group’s turnover by 23% to £37.5m during an 18 month period.

Headquartered in Buckinghamshire, Martin Audio designs, manufactures and distributes high-performance loudspeaker systems for commercial installations, tours and events across the globe. Its customers include London’s British Summertime Festival at Hyde Park, Rock in Rio and iconic London super-club Ministry of Sound.

The business was founded in the 1970s by legendary Australian sound engineer Dave Martin and has produced touring systems for international supergroups such as Pink Floyd, The Who and Supertramp.

Carving out to amplify growth

LDC backed the business in 2018 in a management buyout from US-based global audio specialist Loud Audio, investing £12m in the company alongside its existing management team led by Managing Director Dom Harter.

Since the start of the partnership Martin Audio has grown quickly as a standalone business, adding new clients such as US-based Soundworks, Southard Audio and Twilight Audio as well as new partners including Jamaican brand Main Event Entertainment and Dominican Republic-headquartered Group AR.

Martin Audio has also diversified its offering through the launch of 15 new products since LDC’s investment, opening up new sales channels for the business and enabling it to expand into the commercial installation space.

In 2015, Tony Lockwood, Managing Director of BOFA International came to LDC looking for support for a management buyout and successfully completed the £23m deal. He was motivated by a belief that the business hadn’t yet reached its potential, and the subsequent years have proved him right. The value of the business doubled during our partnership and the company has won a string of awards for the growth it has achieved.

BOFA designs, develops and manufactures high-performance dust and fume extraction systems for a wide range of industrial sectors and supplies household names including Rolls Royce, Cadbury and McLaren.

The 2015 management buyout was a turning point for the business, as Tony Lockwood explains: “The Chairman wanted to retire and if we had chosen a trade sale, we wouldn’t have realised the true value of the business.”

The move allowed the new management team to invest in product development and focus on the company’s international expansion. “LDC’s backing and expertise helped us to professionalise and to accelerate growth,” he said.

Headquartered in Newcastle, Connect Health is the largest, independent provider of integrated community MSK (musculoskeletal) services (including orthopaedics, pain and rheumatology) in the UK.

Connect Health was founded by Professor Andrew Walton in 1989 to provide the highest quality musculoskeletal care, reduce waiting times and improve outcomes for patients. The company has invested significantly in its infrastructure and services over the last four years and grown its workforce by over a third in the last 12 months.

Connect Health secured the minority investment from LDC to accelerate its organic growth strategy.

Ross Trustees was founded in 2010 and provides professional trustee and pensions support services, as well as pensions manager and secretariat administration services through its Ross Corporate Services division.

Enhancing existing services

In November 2020, LDC partnered with the existing management team to support the company’s organic growth strategy.

The investment from LDC helped the management team to develop the company’s service offering for clients and expand its workforce.

This included increasing the number of employees by more than 50% to 70 people, with pensions expertise from across legal, actuarial, consultancy, investment, project management, administrative and business backgrounds.

CEO Succession 

In April 2022, Ross Trustees announced that Andrew Bradshaw will succeed Nigel Moore as Chief Executive Officer as part of a planned succession strategy.

Nigel will remain on the board and continue a successful five-year association with Ross Trustees, having joined as Chief Operating Officer in 2017 before becoming Chief Executive Officer in  2019.

The Adler and Allan Group (A&A) is a leading provider of oil and environmental services. It is the UK’s leading supplier of spill response, fuel and environmental risk reduction services.

The business is unique as it offers both operational capability and consultancy expertise in range and depth.

Backing a secondary buyout

In September 2014 LDC invested in the secondary buyout of A&A.

Since then, we have worked with the management team to help broaden its services, as well as the geographical area it covers.

This has been achieved through a series of small, bolt-on acquisitions, including an investment which brought Worcester Electrical Services into its portfolio.

The firm’s expansion continued and, in 2019, the business became the UK’s largest fuel management and quality provider when it acquired LCM Environmental’s fuel-management business.

This deal enlarged A&A’s forecourt business, allowing the team to enhance its proposition to deliver a full end-to end solution from initial fuel design, through asset resilience and preventative maintenance to emergency response and waste removal and processing.

In November 2020, LDC exited its investment in Adler & Allan to private equity investor Sun Capital, with the current management team staying with the business.