Beechbrook Capital, a specialist direct lender, has completed two more investments for its UK SME Credit I fund, taking the total invested since its first close in January 2016 to GBP77 million in 10 companies.
The fund, which finances non-private equity-backed UK SMEs, has provided unitranche debt to support the management buyout of Nu-Heat, a leading UK supplier of underfloor heating products, from its founders. The lead equity investor is Bestport Capital, which primarily invests funds from family offices and high net worth individuals. Nu-Heat’s management team, supported by Bestport, has ambitious plans both to accelerate new product development and grow the business across the UK.
UK SME Credit I has also backed Wilton & Bain, a specialist provider of executive search services and interim management to the technology and professional services sector across both Europe and the US. Beechbrook is providing a debt and equity package that will enable the senior management to take partial ownership of the business through a reorganisation of the share capital. The funding also provides additional growth capital to support the international expansion of the business.
Jon Herbert, managing director of the fund, says: “The investments in Nu-Heat and Wilton & Bain are illustrative of the continuing strong demand from high quality UK SMEs for the flexible funding we provide. We are very pleased to be able to support both companies, each of which has an impressive management team with ambitious expansion plans.”
Ole Bettum, partner of Bestport Capital, says: “We selected Beechbrook Capital as our debt funding partner as they were able to tailor their funding package to meet our and Nu-Heat’s requirements. The Beechbrook team worked well alongside us throughout the due diligence process and were quick and commercial throughout the deal execution phase of the transaction.”
Jeremy Mobbs, co-founder of Wilton & Bain, says: “Beechbrook Capital invested the time to understand our business and our objectives in relation to expanding the ownership of the business to include the rest of the senior management team. They developed a solution that met all our structuring objectives and helped navigate the transaction to a successful completion.”
