Foresight invests £5m in PlantExpand

The investment is made by the Foresight East of England Fund, which closed on £100m in September 2019. The evergreen patient pool of capital, cornerstoned by the Cambridgeshire Pension Fund, supports SMEs across the east of England, investing up to £5m in a single company. It targets businesses with EBITDA of more than £500,000.

Foresight has supported the current team with the management buyout from owners Paul and Kim Bibby, who are retiring after 30 years of ownership. As part of the investment, Foresight has introduced Tod Harrison to the company as managing director and Hayden Mursell as non-executive chairman; Mursell was formerly the CEO of Kier Group.

The company plans to grow its workshop capacity.

Debt funding for the transaction was provide by Santander Growth Capital.

Company
PlantExpand was founded in 1987 and has material operations across the east of England. The company provides servicing and routine maintenance for specialist plant machinery such as pumps and lifting equipment, as well as a range of fleet vehicles.

Advisers
Equity – Grant Thornton (financial due diligence); Birketts (legal); RPL (commercial due diligence); Cloud Origin (IT due diligence); ECSC Group (IT due diligence); Catalysis Advisory (management due diligence).
Company – Castle Square Corporate Finance (corporate finance); Mills & Reeve (legal).

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• Foresight Group
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