Accountants impress executives in little and large deals

Aug 1 2007 by Iain Laing, The Journal

ACCOUNTANCY firm unw has advised on two recent transactions at opposite ends of the deal spectrum.

The Newcastle firm has worked on a £400,000 fundraising by Newcastle entrepreneurs and their acquisition of intellectual property rights by nano-porous solutions ltd (n-psl) from Bath University and the £453m IPO of Newcastle insulation group eaga plc.

Steve Lant, a partner at unw, said: “Both transactions were of key importance to the companies involved to allow their businesses to be developed and to give access to funding; both had several ups and downs; and both had fairly complex issues which needed to be dealt with by balancing commercial, financial and tax issues.

“Both companies also have impressive senior management with vision and unw were delighted to help both at an important time in their development.”

Colin Billiet, the former chief executive of Newcastle filtration firm domnick hunter, who is the biggest single investor in n-psl, said: “I was very excited when I came across the filtration technology developed by Bath University as I could see massive commercial potential.

“However, there were a number of complexities in putting the deal together and unw guided us expertly throughout the process”. The IPO of eaga plc involved various national advisers but unw gave assistance critical to the deal’s success.

Eaga financial planning director Giles Sharp said: “When a decision was taken to proceed towards an IPO we assessed the work that was required to hit the target date and we realised that there were some important areas where we needed external assistance.

“I knew unw from previous work and contacted them to see whether they could assist and was very impressed by the speed of response. They discussed our requirements and within a few days we had specialist staff working on two key projects.

“Mark Simpson built a complex financial model and Gary Henderson assisted in preparing the data room. These were both front end projects and the outputs stood up to the rigours of the rest of intensive IPO process.”

Mr Lant advised the trustees of the eaga partnership trusts which owned the company before the IPO.

Eaga chief executive John Clough said: “Steve was an inspired choice. … Steve became an integral part of the team and provided excellent guidance, often making extremely complicated issues simple to understand. I was very impressed by the unw team throughout.”