Private Equity firm gets moving with significant investment in specialist mobility equipment retailer
Yorkshire dealmakers Castle Square Corporate Finance and Squire Patton Boggs advise the shareholders of Eden Mobility, on the sale to a leading regional private equity and infrastructure investment manager, Foresight Group.
Foresight Group was founded in 1984 and is one of the UK’s best known private equity investors, with a proven track record of supporting management teams and businesses through substantial growth. Foresight Groups private equity team manages twelve regionally focused investment and impact funds, across the UK and Ireland.
Eden Mobility opened their maiden store in Doncaster, in 1998. The Company has since grown to become one of the UK’s largest, best-known and trusted retailers of mobility equipment, aimed at providing local support to people with age related mobility constrains.
The Company currently operates from 32 stores located across Yorkshire and the Humber, North West, North East, the Midlands and on the South Coast, employing over 100 employees nationally.
The Company was formed by friends and long time business associates, Karl Howe and Dave Hughes. Both have retained an equity interest in the Company and will work alongside Foresight in continuing to develop the Eden Mobility brand and footprint throughout the UK.
As part of the transaction, long standing Eden employees Will Bailey and Lee Jagger will join the board of directors, alongside incoming CEO, Marek Laskowski and incoming Chairman, Andy Torrance. Both Marek and Andy bring with them a wealth of specialist retail experience that will complement the existing Eden Mobility management team.
Eden Mobility Founders, Karl Howe and David Hughes, commented, “We are delighted to welcome Foresight Group, Marek and Andy into the Eden Family. We and our management team, led by Will Bailey and Lee Jagger, look forward to working with them. With the Foresight investment we are excited to see the Eden brand continue its growth story, as we strive to create the market leading national mobility equipment retailer, serving people in local communities throughout the UK, who require high quality mobility equipment and a first-class service. We are incredibly grateful for hard work and support our advisors put into delivering the transaction, without them the transaction simply would not have happened”
Richard Ralph, Investment manager, Foresight Group, said: “As Yorkshire and the North East’s leading elderly mobility equipment retailer, we are delighted to support Eden Mobility on its next stage of growth. We are backing a strong existing and incoming management team to deliver an accelerated growth plan. This is a substantial, growing and unconsolidated market within which we have every confidence the team will establish Eden as the UK’s leading elderly mobility equipment retailer”.
Led by Director Patrick Lynch and supported by Joe Potts and Josh Stokes, Yorkshire based dealmakers Castle Square Corporate Finance ran a competitive bid process, which culminated in five offers. Foresight Group later emerged as the preferred party.
Patrick Lynch, said, “We are incredibly grateful that the Founders selected Castle Square to be the lead corporate finance advisors on this transaction. There were various challenges and complexities to the transaction which the entire advisor group and principles navigated through. With the investment from Foresight and additional management joining the excellent team already employed by Eden Mobility, I am certain Eden Mobility will continue to be a huge success for many years to come”.
The Yorkshire office of global legal and business advisory firm Squire Patton Boggs led by Partner, Paul Mann and supported by Harry Hobson and Joshua Lodge provided legal advice to the Founders.
The Founders were also advised by Doncaster based professional service firms Paul Bullen Solicitors (who provided legal property advice) and WM Haigh & Co who provided accountancy and taxation advice.
Foresight were advised by Cortus Advisory (financial due diligence), PMSI Consulting (commercial due diligence) Gateley Legal (legal advice), Catalysis Advisory (management due diligence), Vista Insurance (insurance due diligence) and KryptoKloud (cyber due diligence).
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NOTES TO THE EDITOR
Yorkshire based Castle Square Corporate Finance offer pro-active corporate finance advice to clients throughout the UK, tailoring our service to our clients and their markets, giving us an enviable record of successfully completing deals, including acquisitions and mergers, Management Buy-Outs and Buy-Ins, finance raising and disposals.
Contact Details:
Kerry Webster (Office Manager)
Castle Square Corporate Finance
Tel: 0114 213 8353
Email: Kerry. [email protected]
website: www.castlesquarecf.co.uk
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/castle-square-corporate-finance
