Ainscough Crane Hire (United Kingdom) - Oct 2007

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01 October 2007

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Bank of Scotland Integrated Finance (BOSIF) has backed the £255m management buyout of Ainscough Crane Hire Ltd. BOSIF provided an integrated debt and equity package to support management’s acquisition of the business from its family owners in return for a minority stake in the newco. Prospective buyers were introduced to the business in the spring before a PricewaterhouseCoopersrun auction process kicked off in May. The deal took six weeks to complete from exclusivity with BOSIF citing its ability to deliver on deals in the current environment of uncertainty as key to it winning the deal.

Company

Ainscough Crane Hire Ltd, based in Standish, near Wigan, is the leading crane hire company in the UK and employs 1,000 people. Founded in 1976, the family run business has expanded through a combination of acquisition and organic growth, and boasts a national network of 25 depots and a modern fleet of 500 mobile cranes. Ainscough primarily serves the infrastructure, petrochemical and general construction sectors. Its blue-chip customer-base includes Amec, Laing O’Rourke, Shell and BP. The company is renowned for its quality of service and its strong safety ethos. For the current year, Ainscough has a forecast EBITDA of £30m on revenues of £110m.

People

Colin James led the deal for BOSIF with support from Neal Edwards, Daniel Appleton, Chris Hopwood and Donald Fowler. Neil Partridge is the CEO of Ainscough.

Advisers

Equity - Deloitte, Hamid Khan, Matt Widdall, Paul Trickett (Corporate Finance)Equity - DLA Piper, Jonathan Watkins, Matt Christmas, Yunus Maka (Legal)Management - Hammonds, Abbie Robinson, Claire Shepherd, Gregg Davison, Jonathan Jones (Legal)Management - Park Place Corporate Finance, James Stone, Tim Simpson (Corporate Finance)Vendor - Fairhurst, Patrick Morris (Tax)Vendor - Hammonds, Christian Lowis, Ian Greenfield, Joy Irving (Legal)Vendor - PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andy Tomkinson, Dale Price, Sebastien Leusch, Tony Meeke (Corporate Finance)