Mills & Reeve provides legal advice on deal of the year

Midwich’s successful IPO deal impressed the judges at Insider's Central & East of England Dealmakers Awards 2016, coming in the run up to the EU referendum when capital markets were generally cautious. 

One of the fastest growing companies in East Anglia, and with global operations in UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Australasia, Midwich is a technology distribution company supplying specialist audio visual (AV) and document to the trade market. The IPO of the group on AIM completed in May, with market capitalisation on float of £165 million, raising £75 million gross proceeds. 

Midwich featured prominently in Mills & Reeve’s Full Scale Ahead report last year as an example of a business which had overcome the challenges faced by ambitious mid-sized companies when looking to scale-up. The report, which was based on interviews with 500 business leaders from across Britain, highlighted how Midwich changed hands through management buy-outs and, in an unusual move, the lead corporate finance adviser on the deal, Stephen Fenby, left Deloitte in 2004 to join Midwich as finance director and shareholder. Stephen has been the managing director since 2010, the majority shareholder since 2013 and has been instrumental in Midwich’s growth and success. 

The Mills & Reeve team was led by corporate partner and capital markets specialist Stephen Hamilton. Stephen said: “Midwich has shown resilience and consistently profitable performance for many years. The fact that its fundraising was significantly oversubscribed is testament to the Midwich team’s dedication and commitment.” 

Investec Bank acted as nominated adviser, sole bookrunner and broker. Grant Thornton UK were reporting accountants and Norton Rose Fulbright were legal adviser to Investec.