Acquirer Spring 2013 - Livingstone Partners

Minefield saleThe sale of a mine disposalbusiness completes a seriesof transactions in whichLivingstone’s long-standingrelationship with its seniormanagement proved critical,reports James GavinDEAL AT A GLANCECLIENT: MINETECH INTERNATIONALSECTOR: DEFENCE & SECURITYDEAL TYPE: SALEBUYER: DYNASAFE AREA CLEARANCE GROUPFew people voluntarilywalk into a minefield,so how do you find anacquirer for a companythat specialises in mineclearance? This was thechallenge presented to theteam at Livingstone by thesale of MineTech International.MineTech provides landmine clearanceand explosive ordnance disposal services forgovernments, non-governmental organisationsand private-sector businesses within the oiland gas sector across 90 countries, includingIraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.MineTech was a subsidiary ofFrontierMEDEX, a specialist provider ofremote site medical, health, safety and mineclearance services, formed from the merger ofExploration Logistics (Exlogs) and MEDEX.Livingstone used its cross-border skills andexperience of complex deals to sell MineTechto Dynasafe Area Clearance Group GmbH,backed by German private equity housePerusa Partners.SALE AWAYLivingstone was originally appointed by theExlogs management team to find an investorto support its aspirations for growth.“We started working with them back in2009,” explains Alex John, Director atLivingstone London. “A couple of foundingdirectors had stepped back from thebusiness and wanted to cash out, so we lookedfor a private equity firm to provide fundsto buy them out. The company was alsointerested in making an acquisition andit was growing quite rapidly, so it neededfurther funding to support that. We wentthrough quite a lengthy process and endedup doing a deal with MML Capital.”Exlogs CEO Timothy Mitchell says: “A lotof work needed to be done to pull together acomprehensive set of historic financials and,particularly, a robust set of projections. Wedidn’t have the internal resources capableof doing that so Livingstone really steppedin with sleeves rolled up to help us pulltogether a business model, which we didin December 2009.”A number of investors expressed stronginterest, but MML Capital emerged as an earlyleader and proved committed and tenacious.“We worked on the deal solidly from spring toDecember 2010, going through a lengthyprocess of due diligence before the dealcompleted,” says Mitchell.When the Exlogs deal was closed, Mitchelland the Livingstone team moved swiftly on tothe next transaction: the merger with MEDEXGlobal Solutions. Completed in March 2011,this merger saw the enlarged organisationrenamed the FrontierMEDEX Group.Complexity was the theme all along andLivingstone’s strong relationships andtechnical expertise were key. “There was awildly complex structure, with a minorityholding by MML, six or seven different debtinstruments and three or four different equityinstruments to balance out everybody’sinterests,” says Mitchell.With the group performing strongly, MML’sthoughts turned to its exit, when Livingstone’sadvice would again prove essential. Althoughthere was a great deal of interest in acquiring14 // WWW.LIVINGSTONEPARTNERS.COM // SPRING 2013