A leading Huddersfield firm has been taken over in a £43m deal.
FMG, the incident and claims management specialist, has been acquired by Redde plc, one of the UK’s premier vehicle support service providers.
And those behind the deal are confident of a bright new future for the firm, which employs 300 people from its base in St Andrew’s Road.
The FMG management team have invested a significant proportion of their equity into Redde shares, as part of that wider investment into the group’s future strategy and the ongoing development of its vehicle claims and support service solutions.
A spokesman said: “The acquisition will see increased group resources combining with FMG’s continued innovation and reputation for quality of service, to deliver a solid platform to further develop our end-to-end claims management and specialist vehicle recovery services in the UK”.
Redde has acquired FMG from its management and a number of funds managed by Endless LLP for approximately £43.2m. The deal is subject to the requisite regulatory approvals being received from The Financial Conduct Authority and the Solicitors Regulation Authorit, and completion is expected to occur within three months.
The previous announcement of the management buyout earlier this year brought FMG to the attention of the sector once again and in particular to Redde. As a highly complementary and natural strategic buyer for FMG, Redde were keen to promptly progress the acquisition, to enable both businesses to capitalise on the significant opportunities the combined businesses would create.
The deal sees private equity house Endless and Nick Brown, who founded FMG in 1986, realise their investments much earlier than expected.
The FMG management team, led by executive chairman Andrew Cope, will be reinvesting a significant part of their equity proceeds as part of the transaction and will remain on board to help drive the business under Redde’s ownership.
Mr Cope will then continue as a non-executive director, advising on strategy, supporting the existing FMG Management team and helping to develop the business.
All FMG’s existing management team including John Catling Managing Director of Commercial, Mark Chessman Managing Director of Operations and Rachael Nevins CFO, will continue as FMG’s business leadership team.
Mr Cope said: “This is a truly exciting day in the long history of FMG. We strongly believe that marrying FMG’s people, knowledge and innovative capacity; to Redde plc’s long term investment and commitment to the vehicle claims market, will result in an outstanding service and technical proposition for our customers today, tomorrow and well into the future.
Martin Ward, Chief Executive of Redde said: “The addition of FMG to the Redde group supports our strategic objective of growing earnings on a sustainable basis and broadening the scope of services we offer which are related to our core businesses. FMG is a quality business and has a strong reputation in its fields of business for serving its customers well”.
