Continued uncertainty at home and abroad has led some investors to take the reasonable decision to sit on the sidelines, but at Souter Investments we’ve seen how extended market disruption can lead to opportunity, and some great deals.
Our activity through the summer reflects that experience, and our second newsletter of the year celebrates the full breadth of our work – fresh investments, further acquisitions, new product launches and successful realisations.
Despite the lack of beach time for the team and our partners, we’re delighted to be closing out the summer on a high note, with autumn now looking just as busy across new deals and within the existing portfolio.
Ancora's acquisition of Red7Marine is one of several recent portfolio highlights.
Geared up with Mi Hub
In our latest deal with Sullivan Street Partners, we completed a new investment in uniforms provider Mi Hub, supporting the acquisition of the business from LDC.
Headquartered in the Midlands, Mi Hub is a one-stop-shop that designs, sources and manages workwear and uniform programmes for a broad range of commercial customers across the UK and, increasingly, internationally.
More than five million people around the world go to work in a Mi Hub uniform, with the business shipping more than 20 million garments each year.
Much of Mi Hub’s strength is in the depth of its customer relationships, supplying its bespoke uniforms under multi-year contracts. Some partnerships have spanned decades, including a 24-year retained Royal Warrant of Appointment to provide uniforms and workwear to the Royal Household.
We look forward to working with our established partners at Sullivan Street (nine deals together and counting), CEO Hayley Brooks and her Mi Hub team as the business builds on its strong market position and expands its global footprint, following the recent launch of Mi Hub Canada.
Amber River makes waves in wealth
We invested in independent wealth manager Amber River alongside another long-term partner, Penta Capital, back in 2019.
Led by Mary-Anne McIntyre, Amber River has since grown from a handful of successful regional advice firms to become one of the largest and fastest-scaling independent wealth management groups in the UK.
Today, Amber River operates across 13 regional wealth centres and manages nearing £14 billion for more than 80,000 clients.
We are excited that Amber River has attracted new majority investment from international partner Stone Point Capital. Stone Point’s investment allows existing shareholders to successfully realise a portion of their own investment with an attractive return, whilst retaining an ongoing stake and continuing to fuel – and benefit from – the business’s future growth.
Acquisition continues rising tide at Ancora Group
Just over a year since our original investment, Ancora Group has completed the acquisition of Red7Marine, a leading UK marine infrastructure and engineering specialist, expanding the group’s portfolio of coastal and marine environment defence solutions.
Ancora now brings together more than 100 years of combined specialist marine infrastructure, vessel and plant expertise, following the addition of Red7Marine to existing businesses that include Teignmouth Maritime Services, Hesselberg Erosion Protection and Marine Plant Hire.
The deal increases the group’s capability to meet demand for resilient marine infrastructure, from flood and coastal defence to offshore renewables, as well as subsea cables and nuclear. It also kickstarts Ancora’s buy-and-build strategy, backed by independent sponsor Sullivan Street.
Acteon strengthens foundations with MENCK sale
Two years after our investment in offshore energy infrastructure services provider Acteon Group, the company announced a major transaction that will support the next phase of its growth strategy.
In August, Acteon sold its marine foundations business, MENCK, to Cadeler for €501m, continuing the strategy that lead investor Buckthorn Partners, along with CEO Brice Bouffard and his team, has pursued since acquisition.
That strategy aims to simplify Acteon’s corporate structure, divesting divisions where new owners would be a better match for those particular assets, whilst enabling the remaining businesses to execute on a focused commercial strategy.
New products accelerate growth at market leader Likezero
Global fintech firm Likezero has been growing apace since we backed its 2020 spinout from PwC. Now a market-leader in counter-party risk and data insights for capital markets, Likezero counts the world’s largest financial institutions as clients, including several Globally Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs).
While capital markets operate digitally and at lightning pace, the contracts that underpin markets have remained one of the last critical banking data sets that are offline. Data covering trillions of dollars in daily trading and counterparty exposure remains locked away in hard-copy documentation or in unstructured databases and disparate systems.
Likezero’s core intelligence platform provides a comprehensive, enhanced, real-time understanding of counterparty relationships, key contractual terms, and risk exposures, enabling institutions to understand and respond more quickly in a world where the pace and impact of market events make speed and accuracy of decision-making imperative.
Now, Likezero is expanding its platform with the launch of Portfolio Insights, a powerful new product providing its clients with enhanced visibility across trusted agreement data, enabling the identification of trends and inconsistencies that would otherwise be hidden. Through Portfolio Insights, clients can now benchmark agreements against internal standards, optimise onboarding strategies and reduce time to trade while improving consistency – strengthening their operational resilience, capital efficiency, and strategic decision-making.
