Dains Corporate Finance provide due diligence services to support MBO of LEAD LTD

Deal summary

Lean Education and Development Limited (“LEAD”), a national provider of accredited vocational learning and development programmes, has been acquired from its founder Gary Edmonds via a management buy-out led by the management team comprising Luke Cartwright (Finance Director), Maxine Jones (Managing Director) and Phil Walters (Operations Director). Dains provided financial due diligence to support Finance Birmingham and RBS.

Established in 2008 and headquartered in Hagley, West Midlands, LEAD specialises in the delivery of accredited adult apprenticeships and lean practice qualifications across a broad range of sectors. LEAD has developed a government funded programme which supports clients with their on-going continuous improvement programmes by training employees in live activity. LEAD is recognised as a class leader in its field both in terms of its business and delivery models and in relation to the quality of its delivery staff and has successfully trained over 7,000 learners since inception.

External funding came from Finance Birmingham’s £56m Mezzanine Fund and RBS’s Corporate Transactions team, with Dains providing financial due diligence services to support the MBO.

The difference we made

Roy Farmer and Rob Wilson provided financial due diligence on the historical financials of LEAD and the forecast financials for LEAD following the MBO and incorporating the debt structure post transaction. We completed the due diligence in a detailed and prompt manner to support the successful completion.

What our client said

Graham Mold, Investment Director at Finance Birmingham said “The financial due diligence report that Dains produced demonstrated their clear understanding of the business, and allowed them to focus on the key risk areas of this transaction. Their review was thorough and commercial, and assisted us in determining the appropriate working capital requirement of the business. We were very satisfied with the overall report and the level of service received, and we wouldn’t hesitate to use Dains again on future opportunities.”

Ondrej Okeke, Director of Corporate Transactions of Future Williams & Glyn Team at RBS added that: “Dains Corporate Finance have delivered a high quality piece of reporting analysis, highlighting the key drivers within the business and a financial model that were relevant to the bank’s risk assessment. As ever, the team has been responsive to any further areas of detail requiring clarification, and presented its findings coherently in a well structured report.”

What we said

Roy Farmer said, “This was another great opportunity to support RBS and Finance Birmingham, both of whom we have worked for on previous occasions. Our review was tightly scoped and focused on the key issues relating to the MBO transaction, with particular attention paid to the volume of new learners being trained and the relationships that existed between LEAD, the Further Education Colleges and LEAD’s blue chip employer client base.”