Lonsdale's Nucore rebrands, secures Beechbrook refinancing

Kenny Wastell
20 January 2017

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Lonsdale Capital-backed Oteac, a Scottish oil & gas services business, has rebranded as Nucore Group and secured a mezzanine refinancing package from Beechbrook Capital.

The debt package will enable Nucore to part-refinance its senior debt package, in addition to providing operational finance.

As part of the merger and rebranding exercise, Nucore has also appointed former ACE Winches chief operating officer and Sparrows Offshore executive board member Graham Thomson as its CEO.

Beechbrook's investment was drawn from its third private debt fund, which held a first close at around €100m in August 2016 and is expected to hold a final close in June or July 2017. The vehicle has a target of €200m and provides debt packages of between €5-15m to private-equity-backed companies with turnovers of €10-100m.

The debt package includes an equity kicker and has a maturity of three to five years.

A spokesperson for Lonsdale declined to comment on the size of the refinancing package, though they told unquote" the GP had not divested any of its stake as part of the deal.

Previous funding
Lonsdale bought a majority stake in Oteac from the firm's private owners in October 2013, with RBS providing a debt package to support the transaction. The GP then provided equity to partly finance the £10.25m acquisition of HVAC & Refrigeration Engineering (HVAC&R), in May 2015.

Company
Aberdeen-based oil & gas services business Nucore was founded as Oteac in 1984. Oteac was originally an offshore fire and safety services business, while HVAC&R was a provider of heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration engineering.

People
Lonsdale – David Gasparro (partner).
Nucore – Graham Thomson (CEO).