Grant Thornton UK LLP’s Corporate Finance team in the North West has advised on two tech-enabled deals in as many weeks in Liverpool City Region, as the firm notes that the challenging market conditions is not drying up interest in regional, quality, tech-enabled assets.
In early March, the Grant Thornton team led the sale of advised on the sale of two Liverpool City Region-based businesses, including ‘digital first’ debt recovery and credit management services provider Ardent Credit Services and the sale of artificial intelligence-based talent analytics platform Horsefly.
Subject to FCA approval, Ardent will add 26 years’ expertise and experience to the new owner Phillips & Cohen Associates (PCA) in the UK collections industry. Ardent’s technology allows its clients to choose the most appropriate channels through which to interact, was attracted to PCA as part of its growth strategy.
Meanwhile, Horsefly, which enables AI-based HR decision making, has secured investment from mid-market private equity investor LDC, after Mercia, via the North West Fund for Venture Capital, successfully exited the business.
Its subscription-based software as a service (SaaS) platform gathers and aggregates real-time data on labour markets from 60 countries, creating insight into business-critical issues such as global talent sourcing, onboarding, diversity and inclusion, rewards and benefit benchmarking, and workforce development and planning.
Advising on these two prominent Liverpool City Region-based deals marks a positive start to 2023, following a strong 2022 that saw the North West corporate finance advisory team named as Mid-Market Corporate Finance Team of the Year at the prestigious Insider Dealmakers Awards.
Chris Ryan, Corporate Finance transaction lead for Grant Thornton in Liverpool said: “Given the last half year of economic and political uncertainty, it is a testament to the quality businesses within the Liverpool City Region and right across the North West, that transactions are showing little sign of slowing down.
“Liverpool City Region has a growing reputation for creating quality, tech-enabled businesses and Horsefly and Arden Credit Services are prime examples.
“We expect that, as we progress through the year that innovative tech-enabled businesses with blue chip customers, and secure revenues will remain appealing for investors, both domestically and internationally due to their proven resilience and flexibility.”
