Brand Addition in secondary management buyout supported by Elysian Capital LLP

Brand Addition, the UK-headquartered promotional services business serving large corporate clients across its offices in Europe, US and Asia announces today that, effective from 8th May 2017, it has been acquired by existing management and funds managed by private equity company Elysian Capital LLP (“Elysian Capital”) from HIG Capital.  

Headquartered in the UK, Brand Addition is a leading global service provider in the design, sourcing and distribution of promotional merchandise to large corporates predominantly in the automotive, engineering, health and beauty, FMCG, technology and financial services industries.

Following the carve-out from 4imprint in March 2012 supported by H.I.G. Capital and management, Chris Lee, CEO of Brand Addition, and the team worked to successfully reposition the business, increasing the range of services, geographic reach and shifting the emphasis to an exclusive focus on large corporates under long term contracts.  The acquisition of St Louis based Gateway CDI in January 2016 followed new office openings in Turkey, Russia and China.  Today Brand Addition offers the unique combination of a broad service delivery and global reach in what remains a highly fragmented industry.  

Chris Lee, commented:

“We would like to thank the team at our outgoing investors H.I.G. Capital for their advice, encouragement and support over the last five years. Under H.I.G.’s ownership we have successfully internationalised the business, concluding two acquisitions; most recently entering our largest market in the US early last year.  With Elysian we believe we have a partner who can help us to continue the business’s growth both UK and international.  Elysian’s strong and consistent interest in the business and added value operating partner approach were very appealing and we look forward to the continuation of our growth with Elysian”

Ken Terry, CEO of Elysian Capital said:

“Elysian is delighted to acquire such a high quality business like Brand Addition which is uniquely placed to serve its large international customers throughout the world. We would like to thank HSBC and Beechbrook for their support in part financing this deal and look forward to supporting Chris and his excellent team in continuing the growth of the company further.”

Alastair Mills, Principal at H.I.G. Capital commented:  

We have enjoyed working with Chris Lee and his team in what has been a successful investment for H.I.G.  Assisting in the execution of the strategic plan via international expansion, the targeting of new customer channels and end markets plays to many of H.I.G.’s strengths.  Brand Addition today has the global footprint to capitalise on its market leading service proposition.  We wish Chris and the team every success in the future.

GCA Altium advised the company on the sale and the team included managing director Simon Lord, director Paul Lines and associate Andy Battersby. Simon Lord said: “H.I.G. and the Brand Addition management team bought a division of a plc in 2012 and have grown the business, via acquisition and organically, into an international market leader with 9 strategically located offices across the globe and sales of c.£80m. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with H.I.G. and a genuinely best in class management team and we wish Brand Addition, and its new investor Elysian Capital, well for the future.

Osborne Clarke (Mark Spinner) and Dentons (Stephen Levy) provided sell-side and management legal advice respectively, while PwC advised management. . Grant Thornton were the tax adviser to selling shareholders whilst vendor financial due diligence was performed by Deloitte and commercial diligence by CIL.

Advisors to Elysian Capital included Eversheds Sutherland (legal), PwC (financial and tax due diligence) and Aon (insurance). Senior debt and working capital facilities were provided by HSBC (advised by DLA Piper) and mezzanine finance was provided by Beechbrook Capital LLP (advised by Gateleys).

For further information, please contact:

Chris Lee, CEO, Brand Addition chris.lee@brandaddition.com

Dave Colclough, Elysian Capital david@elysiancapital.com