Quantuma closes record-breaking eight deals in two weeks

Business advisory firm Quantuma’s corporate finance division has completed eight transactions in the last two weeks, with a combined deal value of more than £130 million. The transactions, which largely were located in the South of England, come after Quantuma considerably increased its corporate finance operations by merging with K3 Capital Group in a £43m deal last year.

Quantuma said that the spate of deals had been aided by anticipated changes to Capital Gains Tax in the Spring Budget. While these changes were not made in the budget, Quantuma said that there continues to be an expectation that changes will happen.

The eighth deal, which closed yesterday, was the cross-border sale of UK architecture and design magazine Dezeen to Danish media firm JP/Politiken Media Group, which Quantuma advised on.

The advisory was also involved in the sale of specialist project management provider Collaborative Project Management Services (CPMS) to French consulting and engineering group Egis, in which shareholder YFM Equity Partners exited CPMS.

Quantuma was also advised on a partial shareholder exit during the acquisition of identity and access management specialist ThirdSpace by TiG Data.

Quantuma also acted as adviser on a number of MBOs, including the £18 million takeover of Pareto FM backed by NVM Private Equity, the MBO of data security firm Phoenix Datacom with backing from LDC and the takeover of consultancy Compliancy Services with backing from Ethos Partners.

The advisory firm's Transaction Services division also completed its first vendor due diligence role in recent weeks, on the £38.7 million investment by Harwood Private Equity in colocation firm Amito. The division also acted as adviser to Herida Healthcare during its acquisition of Select Medical.

Quantuma Managing Director Ian Barton, who acted as lead advisor on the bulk of the deals, said: “This has been the busiest period that Quantuma has ever had for completing corporate finance transactions. Driven by entrepreneurs anticipating changes to Capital Gains Tax in the Chancellor’s Budget on 3rd March, we saw incredible appetite from both buyers and sellers.”

“Whilst no change materialised from the Budget, there remains an expectation that changes will be forthcoming, and we continue to experience growing activity levels despite the surge of deal completions in the last few weeks.”

“After an inevitable pause in transactions in the first few months of the pandemic, we have seen accelerating activity since last autumn and the deals market has bounced back stronger than ever, with new types of transactions coming to the fore. Deals are happening at pace and our pipeline is strong, so we expect continued deal activity for the next few months ahead.”

K3 Group Corporate Finance Lead Mark Lucas added: “Quantuma has gone from strength-to-strength in the last 12 months and, following our merger with K3 Capital Group last year, we have added further depth to our corporate finance offering.”

“I was delighted to see KBS recognised as the most active adviser in the South East in 2020 and these eight deals further underline that status for the Group in the first few months of 2021. Across the K3 Group we are continuing to invest in our ability to support businesses across all regions and sectors through significant periods of change.”


Find businesses for sale here.

If you are looking for an exit, we can help!

Share this article

Latest Professional and Financial Businesses for Sale

View more businesses for sale