Maven leads £7.25m SPS MBO

With Maven's support the company plans to grow both organically and acquisitively. SPS will look to increase its product development, expand its sales channels and set up new licence and distribution agreements with strategic partners in order to gain greater exposure in the UK and European retail market.

According to Maven, the UK promotional merchandise market is worth £760m a year and is likely to increase as advertising budgets rise thanks to improving market conditions.

Debt
Debt finance for the deal was provided by PNC Business Credit.

Company
Blackpool-based SPS supplies promotional merchandise. The company sells its products to 2,000 independent distributors in the UK and Europe. SPS employs 200 people in its 90,000 square-foot site, which houses manufacturing, branding and storage facilities.

The company's product range includes mugs, keyrings, mousemats, rulers, notepads and other stationery items, which can be branded with company logos to be used for promotional purposes.

For the year to 29 December 2012, SPS recorded operating profit of £800,000 and for the six months ending June 2013 it was £400,000.

People
Philip Morgan is the CEO of SPS. Ryan Bevington is investment director at Maven.

Advisers
Equity – Gateley, Paul Jefferson (Legal); Dow Schofield Watts (Financial due diligence).
Management – Addleshaw Goddard (Legal).

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• Topics
• Buyouts
• UK / Ireland
• Maven Capital Partners
• United Kingdom