Rubicon and Grovepoint support buyout of John Lawrie

Kenny Wastell
20 November 2017

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Rubicon Partners and Grovepoint Capital have supported the buyout of UK-based oilfield decommissioning and metal recycling business John Lawrie Group.

Financial details of the transaction remain undisclosed, though the shareholders' combined equity was valued at £45.6m at the end of 2016, according to publicly available documents.

According to reports by unquote" sister publications Mergermarket and Debtwire earlier this year, the negotiations were based on an EBITDA figure of £10-12m. At the time, Debtwire reported the debt package to support the deal was expected be worth around 3.5x EBITDA, though this could be as high as 5x.

Rubicon specialises in investments within the manufacturing and distribution segments for the aerospace, agriculture, automotive, building products, diversified industrials and energy sectors. It targets buyouts of businesses with enterprise values of £15-250m with a view to remain invested for more than seven years.

Following completion of the transaction, the business will look to expand across the UK and US markets, in addition to pursuing bolt-on opportunities. In particular the group is looking to focus on North Sea decommissioning activity over the coming decade.

The transaction was led by John Lawrie CEO Vic Sinclair, financial director Charlie Parker, operations director Dave Weston and tubulars director Iain Laing.

LDC and HIG Capital were also involved in the bidding process, according to the aforementioned reports by Mergermarket and Debtwire, which both cited sources familiar with the matter.

Bank of Scotland and Santander provided banking facilities to support the deal.

Company
Founded in 1930 and headquartered in Aberdeen, John Lawrie is an oilfield decommissioning, metal recycling and steel tubular distribution business. The business has additional operations in Montrose, Evanton, Houston, New Jersey and Philadelphia.

John Lawrie generated a turnover of around £56m in 2016 with an operating profit of £5.5m, according to publicly available documents. It has a headcount of 65.

People
Rubicon Partners – Peter Brock, Andrew Fischer, Ian Fisher, Alan Fletcher (partners).
John Lawrie Group – Vic Sinclair (CEO); Charlie Parker (financial director); Dave Weston (operations director); Iain Laing (tubulars director).