Onyx Scientific has completed a management buy out from its original shareholders by its existing management team; Dr Tony Flinn (chief executive), Dr Derek Londesbrough (R&D director)
Onyx Scientific has completed a management buy out from its original shareholders by its existing management team; Dr Tony Flinn (chief executive), Dr Derek Londesbrough (R&D director), Denise Bowser (commercial director) and Nathan Lane (finance director), aided by funds managed by the private equity team at Noble Fund Managers. Senior debt was provided by HSBC Bank.
Onyx provides chemistry services to a range of pharmaceutical companies. The deal was introduced directly to Noble by Flinn, who co-founded the business in 2000. Noble was attracted to the impressive history of growth and Onyx’s reputation amongst the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies for providing a range of quality services on time and to budget.
Noble’s dedicated healthcare team provided a thorough appraisal of the commercial merits of the opportunity before the deal was executed by Charles McMicking and Doug Lawson of the Generalist Private Equity team together with Dr Louis Nisbet of the healthcare team. A similar approach was used for the development capital investment in Optasia Medical in November 2006.
‘We are extremely pleased to have completed the buy-out, and we look forward to working with Noble to further increase revenues by developing new and enhanced services for our customers. We look forward to providing an even more responsive and successful company,’ says Flinn.
‘This investment adds to our growing healthcare portfolio and I look forward to working with the management team to achieve our goals,’ says Nisbet, who will become a director of the company.
Onyx Scientific is a chemistry Outsourcing specialist that supplies a diverse array of chemistry research and development services to the pharmaceutical and related industries. Onyx Scientific provides contract research, custom synthesis, small-scale cGMP manufacturing and other services in addition it supplies novel fine chemicals based on proprietary technology.
Noble Fund Managers is the fund management arm of Noble Group, the independent UK investment bank that provides a unique range of professional services to fast growing small/mid cap companies and investment vehicles. The private equity team manages four venture capital trusts including Noble VCT, a generalist fund, and Sitka Health Fund VCT. The private equity team recently realised Sitka VCT’s investment in Altrix, which generated a 33% annual internal rate of return.
