Yorkshire based Corporate Finance advisory firm, Castle Square Corporate Finance, has advised specialist Children’s Services provider My Choice Children’s Homes Limited, in a £3.7 million refinance and development expenditure fund raising, supported by leading alternative lender to mid-sized SMEs, ThinCats.
My Choice Children’s Homes was established in 2000 as a provider of specialist children’s residential care and educational support services for children displaying emotional and behavioural difficulties.
With a head office in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, the company provides community-based care in small homes, which create a family style environment, alongside educational support, and it currently runs 9 residential children’s homes across Sussex and Surrey and 2 schools.
In their search for the funding, required to embark on the next phase of expansion, that will involve acquiring additional homes, Castle Square Corporate Finance ran a competitive fundraising process for the company.
The process culminated in a significant number of funding offers being received from a combination of clearing banks and alternative lenders, out of which ThinCats were selected as preferred funding partner.
My Choice were advised on the transaction by Directors Kevan Shaw and Patrick Lynch.
Patrick Lynch. Director at Castle Square said “Fantastic to have delivered the funding for a strong, reputable and stable business in My Choice. The funds raised will allow the management team to deliver on their growth business plan, via the purchase of additional properties, allowing a greater number of children to receive the residential and educational support services offer by the My Choice Group. The multiple funding offers received in the process is evidence of the current appetite lenders have to support UK businesses“.
Richard Henshaw, Director, National Development Healthcare, ThinCats: “The team at My Choice have an incredible combined catalogue of experience and demonstrated expertise across the board. We are delighted to be continuing to support mid-sized businesses, and to have been able to push this funding through in a timely manner to tie in with the ambitious plans that the company has for the future is very rewarding.”
Alex Hyland of My Choice Children’s Homes: “ThinCats and Castle Square have been incredibly agile and responsive, investing a huge amount of effort into arranging this funding within the timeframe that we required. It is a crucial step to enable us to successfully pursue our development plans, and to support the further growth of the company by moving to a freehold model.”
The company received legal advice from the legal division of the Progeny Group led by Senior Legal Counsel Phil Jordan based at Progeny’s office in central Leeds. Clyde & Co provided legal support to the funder Thincats on the transaction led by Dean Gormley.
