Exciting Times Ahead for Dains Accountants

Dains Accountants has secured significant investment from Horizon Capital, the private equity investor specialising in technology and business services

Dated: 16 December 2021 Authors: Richard McNeilly, Managing Partner

With almost 200 staff, Dains provides essential services to 4,000 fast-growth businesses, international companies and high net worth individuals helping clients achieve their goals through award-winning audit, tax and business advisory and support services. The market that Dains operates in is highly fragmented and driven by strong tailwinds due to increasing levels of compliance and sophistication, as a result of which a growing proportion of clients are outsourcing business-enhancing tasks to expert providers.

Dains has delivered market leading growth which has continued through the COVID-19 pandemic, underpinned by its reputation for quality service and the breadth of the firm’s proposition. Horizon Capital have invested significant capital to expand these capabilities further and to enhance this through high quality acquisitions for the benefit of clients and staff alike. The partnership with Horizon will enable Dains to continue to build on the momentum already created following the recent acquisitions.

Richard McNeilly, Managing Partner of Dains, commented: “This is an exciting time for Dains, our clients and colleagues. We are delighted to be partnering with Horizon Capital who have a strong track record in supporting companies such as ours to accelerate both organic and acquisitive growth. Dains has grown in recent years thanks to the hard work of our colleagues and the support of our clients, and we look forward to building on that success with this investment.” 

Luke Kingston, Partner at Horizon Capital, added: “We are excited to invest in Dains as the company provides essential, tech-enabled services to a large universe of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and high net worth individuals, both vital components of the UK economy. Dains is already a strong player with an impressive track record, and we look forward to working with Richard and his team to supplement this with an exciting acquisition strategy.” 

Advisors on the transaction were:

  • Horizon Capital: CMS (legal), Alvarez and Marsal (Financial) and Fairgrove Partners (Commercial).
  • Dains: Irwin Mitchell (legal)
  • Newco: Forward CF (Modelling) Tax (Deloitte), HSBC Corporate (Banking) Addleshaw Goddard (Banking legal)