The past 14 months have been very successful for MacRoberts’ Corporate team, who have worked on a fantastic range of deals right across the Scottish economy, acting for large UK PLCs, an array of successful Scottish SMEs and some of Scotland’s most exciting new businesses.
UK PLCs
We advised FTSE-listed Johnston Press plc, one of the UK’s largest local and regional multimedia organisations, on the sale of 13 publishing titles in East Anglia and the East Midlands. Following three acquisitions in 2016, we continued to advise AIM-listed Idox plc in relation to an acquisition of an electoral software company.
Emerging Scottish Businesses
We are pleased to say that we have acted in deals involving some of Scotland’s most exciting new companies. We continued to assist cleantech pioneer Heliex Power Limited in another successful equity funding round. We acted for Sumdog Limited, a learning software company which utilises game-based learning to motivate children in maths and English, in receiving investment funding from Nesta and Scottish Enterprise. We also acted for Barwell plc in a further investment into Fixed Phage Limited, an up-and-coming business developing bacteriophage immobilisation and stabilisation technology.
Scottish SMEs and family businesses
Family businesses and Scottish SMEs remain at the heart of what we do. We acted for Boyd & Company Limited, one of Scotland’s leading independent insurance brokers, in a sale of 75% of its share capital. We also acted for James D Bilsland Limited in the acquisition of an oil and gas distributor in Kilmarnock, bringing together two long-established family businesses to create one of the biggest privately owned fuel distributors in central Scotland. In addition, we acted for Greenwood Insurance Consultants, an established family business of insurance brokers, in their merger with Moreland Insurance Brokers.
We also recently acted for Morrison’s of Stirling in the sale of Morrison’s Garage Limited and Morrisons (Land Rover) Limited to the John Clark Group. Morrison’s, founded in 1927, was a long-established family-owned motor retail business, with Land Rover, Jaguar and SEAT franchises. This acquisition was a strategic move by the John Clark Group to build on their portfolio and strengthen their offering in the Central Belt of Scotland. Also in the motor industry, we acted for Leven Cars Group in its strategic acquisition of the Kia, Suzuki, Mitsubishi and Lotus dealerships in Edinburgh and Selkirk from John Martin Group which traded under the Belmont Group brand.
