This month we've heard about:
Recent M&A Activity - recent healthcare and education M&A activity
Last Word - we speak to Gordon Hamilton of Nexus Corporate Finance
Recent M&A activity
Healthcare
- Management buyout of Oakland Primecare for £30 million backed by Synova Capital
- Merger of Pharmacy2U and ChemistDirect.co.uk has been backed by £10m of investment fromy2U and ChemistDirect.co.uk has been backed by £10m of investment from
- The Hub Pharmacy (Bridges Ventures backed pharmacy chain) has acquired 6 community pharmacies in Yorkshire from Living Care Pharmacy.
- Network Locum (workplace management software)
- Apposite capital will provide up to £12 million to expand diagnostic imaging company Medical Imaging Partnership.
- Bridges Ventures has exited from domiciliary care social enterprise CASA.
- Sovereign Capital has backed a MBO of Xendo, a life sciences consultancy firm.
- Amadeus Captial Partners has invested in Inotex, a wound care mobile medical Device.
- NorthEdge makes first healthcare acquisition, backing the management buyout of Direct Healthcare Services
- Idox acquired Open Objects (Health & Social Care Software) for £5.2m
Education
- UK-based private equity firm Sovereign Capital has sold professional training and coaching company Lifetime Training to Silverfleet Capital.
- Investcorp sells GL Education for an undisclosed amount
- Acorn Care & Education and the National Fostering Agency are set to merge in £400 million deal
- Asquith Nurseries is seeking a new owner, Jefferies is running the process
- A 55% stake in English language teaching school Malvern House Ireland has been sold by AECto Oscar World Education
Last Word
This month's Last Word is by Gordon Hamilton of Nexus Corporate Finance.
Circassia Pharmaceuticals Plc reported the Phase III clinical trial failure for its lead cat allergy vaccine. Roll on the headlines of another high profile UK biotech failure. We need to acknowledge the failure but more importantly we need to endeavour to prevent it happening again, starting by understanding what went wrong.
Answers to the following two questions may shed some light on how it happened to go so spectacularly wrong:-
- Did the connection between Neil Woodford and Imperial Innovations Plc have any influence on the valuation?
- For the £200m IPO did J.P. Morgan take it to specialist biotech investors?
No biotech product is without risk which is why big pharma are happy to pay spectacularly for products once approved. My fear is the generalist funds will now avoid the UK sector for another 10 years. Hopefully in the future they will go and speak to specialist funds if they do not have the capabilities and experience in-house, as I know a couple who predicted this at the time of the IPO.
Let’s hope the management can use the money to create a biotech company we can all be proud of – without a cat allergy vaccine which I always though a silly idea in the first place, just don’t get a cat…
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