Partner Article

Manchester investment bank has record H1

Manchester-based investment bank Altium has advised on deals worth £2.8bn during the first six months of 2012, a 61% on the same period last year.

Between January and June, Altium completed 24 deals, including nine led by its UK team in Manchester, London and Leeds and 15 by its international offices.

The firm advised on Equistone Partners Europe’s acquisition of a stake in recruitment business Fircroft, in a deal worth £140m.

Elsewhere, a management buyout of Bifold Group, the leading designer of valves and pumps for the oil and gas industry by LDC, was handled by Altium, as was the multi-million pound sale of Arena, the leading owner and operator of racecourses.

Internationally, Altium was involved in the sale of Austrian surfing merchandise retailer Blue Tomato to US based Zumiez Inc and the sale of a stake in internet retailer digitec/Galaxus to Migros, the largest retailer in Switzerland.

Phil Adams, group chief executive of Altium, said: “We had an extremely active first half of the year in spite of wider economic conditions, advising on a number of significant deals.

“We have seen good levels of deal activity across a number of our core sectors and in particular technology, e-commerce, consumer, renewable and industrials

“We have also seen an increase in cross-border transactions with two sizeable sales to US based buyers announced recently. We expect to see continued dealflow in these areas in the second half of the year.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .