Acquisition of two Refactory Engineering Companies in Denmark, Europe
The Company
Hornblower are exclusively retained by a U.S. engineering corporation with turnover in excess of £100m p.a. to target and secure acquisitions for them throughout Europe. The company is a family owned private company which is now led by the third generation of the family and the family values of the company are still very strong with a total commitment to rewarding their employees and creating a positive working culture.
The Situation
The company is growing rapidly in the U.S but also recognised that the market sectors which they dominate in the U.S are also particularly strong in Europe, so wanted to undertake a quick series of acquisitions to get a strong foothold in the European market.
What Hornblower Did
Having been retained in early 2013 we committed to researching the appropriate market sector across Europe and we firstly concluded the list of countries which likely had the most significant opportunities determined by the current size of the market. This list of countries included Netherlands, the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. We then researched the dominant companies in each of these countries and started engaging with them under NDA to explore the potential saleability of each of the target companies.
We were then able to construct a short list and prioritise the companies that we thought were best fit and most acquirable. We agreed heads of terms with two companies in Denmark very quickly and these transactions concluded successfully in September 2013. We were able to keep both these transactions running in parallel and completing almost simultaneously which was critical as both companies were close competitors and unaware of the acquisition of the other.
There is now an on-going programme of dialogue with further potential target acquisitions throughout Europe.
Click here for the Business Wanted criteria
Deals completed - September 2013