Gresham divests Swift

It is understood the deal rewarded Gresham with a more than 2x return on its investment. 

The company famously hit the headlines in 2010 when its four former directors were accused of conspiring to damage the company in order to sell it at a rock bottom price to HIG European Capital. It was alleged that Swift's directors, Stuart Cantley, Paul Jacobs, Graham Chalker and Andrew Lyons, were in cahoots with HIG partners and directors, including Paul Canning and Alastiar Mills, to ruin the company's reputation and therefore force Gresham to write off its investment. The directors were fired in August of that year, and the case was settled out of court. 

Swift's new owner, Wellspring, is a New York-based mid-market private equity house. The acquisition follows last week's purchase of another UK-based private equity-backed recruitment company, Graphite Capital's sale of Alexander Mann Solutions to New Mountain Capital.

Previous investment
Gresham initially backed the management buyout of Swift in June 2006. At that time, expected 2006 revenues were £128m with an operating profit of more than £11m.

Company
Swift provides recruitment services to the oil & gas industry globally. The company has 23 specialist offices that service 35 countries, and provide personnel services to around 180 clients.

Under Gresham's stewardship, the company has expanded its client base and focused on higher margin businesses. Furthermore, the company has entered six new geographical markets including Australia, Canada, China, Ghana, Korea, Kuwait and Singapore, while its US offices increased from one to seven.

According to Companies House data, Swift reported turnover of £357m in the year ending 31 December 2012, generating operating profit of £15m, and total profit of £2.3m.

Swift was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Enfield in the UK. The company was first known a Jigsaw but changed its name in 1986.

People
James Barbour-Smith is partner at Gresham. Tobias Read is CEO of Swift.

Advisers
Company – William Blair & Co (Financial due diligence); DLA Piper (Legal).
Equity – Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison (Legal); MacFarlanes (Legal); KPMG (Financial due diligence); Alvarez & Marsal (Tax).

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