Investec acquires majority interest in corporate finance firm Capitalmind

Ero Partsakoulaki
07 June 2023

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London- and Johannesburg-listed Investec will increase its 30% shareholding in Capitalmind Group to approximately 60%, with the independent France-based M&A and corporate finance advisory firmтs partners retaining the remaining 40%.

Following completion of the transaction, Capitalmind will trade as Capitalmind Investec, according to a press release.

The transaction will allow Investec and Capitalmind to fully integrate their M&A and corporate finance teams under one common umbrella, creating an M&A Group that provides clients with access to markets of Europe and North America, as well as emerging markets in Asia and Africa, it said.

The rationale behind the transaction is centred around the need for mid-market investment banking to be globally integrated. The integration will provide Investec with a majority-owned footprint across several major economies in Western Europe and is set to enhance the opportunity to leverage a broader array of investment banking products into Capitalmind's clients in continental Europe, it said.

"We will be very focused on the M&A business as that is the core capital light offering to clients and we want to grow that," Charles Barlow, head of strategy execution at Investec Bank told Unquote.

"One of Investec's largest businesses is our private equity lending business. A large portion of our private equity lending clients in the UK transact into Western Europe, so this should allow us to refer new business into Capitalmind," he said. "At the same time, much of what Capitalmind does touches on the European private equity sector, which in turn should bring us new lending opportunities in Western Europe."

Investec and Capitalmind first established an international advisory partnership in 2018, while the former acquired a 30% stake in the latter in 2021, it said. Over the 24 months to 31 March 2023, both firms advised clients globally on more than 230 transactions with a total value of more than EUR 25bn, it said.

Together, Capitalmind and Investec have 129 advisory practitioners based in Europe, it said. The Investec Group has advisory teams based in United Kingdom, India and South Africa, while Capitalmind operates in most of Western Europe and in particular to Benelux, France, Germany, the Nordics and Switzerland.

Jointly, the two firms have had an exclusive partnership in the USA since 2020 with broker dealer Regions Securities and its subsidiaries BlackArch and Clearsight, it said.

From the perspective of business sectors, Investec's areas of focus with respect to advisory largely mirror those of Capitalmind, said the statement. These include business services, consumer, energy, financial services, food and agriculture, healthcare, industrials, infrastructure and TMT. In addition, both Investec and Capitalmind have active private equity sponsor coverage practices, it said.

Most recently, Investec has been advising on the potential sale of UK steak-restaurant chain Gaucho, which is currently owned by its lender-owners, Unquote sister publication Mergermarket reported.

Capitalmind has been overseeing the carve-out of a handful of eye clinics in Switzerland by Montagu-backed German ophthalmology platform Artemis, as reported.

People
Investec Bank − Ruth Leas (CEO), Charles Barlow (head of strategy execution), Jonathan Arrowsmith (head of M&A). Capitalmind − Ervin Schellenberg, Michel Degryck, Jan Willem Jonkman (managing partners).

[Editor's Note: The article has been updated post-publication to include comments from Charles Barlow, head of strategy execution at Investec Bank.]