Some people are hard to please.

After a couple of years when Yorkshire’s deals market performed at a much higher level than expected, the fact that the value of total deals completed in 2006 fell slightly below the healthy levels achieved in 2005 led at least one market-watcher to describe the past 12 months as “patchy”.

The value of Yorkshire deals in 2006 reached £1.14bn, only slightly lower than the £1.26bn seen in 2005. However, as EN’s following list of the Top 20 deals in the region shows, there were quality deals done at all levels of the market, with a couple of mega-deals breaching the £300 million barrier.

Indeed, the fact that one of these – the buy-out of Harrogate-based Premier Hotels – was purchased by a venture capital house showed that fears which were being expressed some 12 months ago about VCs ‘abandoning’ Yorkshire have proved spectacularly groundless.

Although there were fewer public-to-private deals completed in 2006, our ranking of the region’s best deals of 2006 contains no fewer than 12 VC-backed deals. Around half of these were completed by firms without a base in the region, but there are also number of private equity players that have moved into the market within the past 12 months.

“Private equity is continuing its renaissance in Yorkshire,” says Keith Froud of law firm Eversheds. “Firms like Inflexion and LDC were extremely busy in 2006 and it was encouraging to see new entrants such as ISIS and Phoenix,” he says.

It isn’t just the VCs that have been busy, though, as McInnes Corporate Finance’s Tim Edwards explains. “Around three quarters of the sell side work we have done in the past 12 months has seen corporates and trade buyers winning auctions, so they are still very active and look set to remain so.”

Indeed, it appears that so long as interest rates remain low, providing debt at levels that are historically cheap, there will be interested buyers for quality firms. “For every good business being sold, there are buyers outdoing each other,” says Deloitte’s head of corporate finance in the region, Martin Jenkins. Long may it continue.

Buy-out of a Leeds-based pharmaceutical firm which (according to its lead advisor) has the potential to become one of the best prospects in the region.

David Hardless, a director of Leeds-based Park Place Corporate Finance, says that Rosemont Pharmaceuticals represents “one of the best private equity opportunities I’ve seen in all my years of doing deals”.

The business had been owned by US-based Savient Pharmaceuticals for just three years, but Hardless says that it soon realised that Rosemont wasn’t a great fit.

“The US business was focused on drug discovery, whereas Rosemont invented liquid forms of existing drugs. But having owned it for around three years, it was able to sell it on for a nice profit,” he explains.

Indeed, there was interest from both trade and private equity partners, but it eventually went to Close Brothers Private Equity. It took a majority stake in a deal which valued the firm at £94 million. It has given equity stakes to both managing director John Blythe (who joined the firm as a school leaver in 1975) and finance director Neil Salvin. They have now been joined by non-executive chair Kevin James, who was previously head of pharmacy firm Wyeth UK.

Rosemont has become a specialist in developing oral liquid forms of often complex drugs to treat everything from breast cancer to heart disease for patients suffering from dysphagia – an inability or strong reluctance to swallow tablets.

Hardless says the business has a huge future. It is currently working on conversions of other drugs into liquid forms, and it recently received approval from the US Government’s Food and Drug Administration for one of its products.

“That basically means the plant is FDA-approved, which will make it easier to launch other products in the US,” explains Hardless.

Moreover, since the US has a liberal approach to price controls on the drugs market, Rosemont can charge “whatever it feels the market will bear”, according to Hardless. God Bless America!

2 Croda International (acquisition)

The biggest deal to complete in the region during 2006 was Goole-based Croda’s acquisition of Uniquema (a division of ICI). It had, as Royal Bank of Scotland’s regional director Roger Powell explains, been in the offing for some time.

“We’d been asked to take a look at it a couple of years earlier, so when it was resurrected last year a lot of the groundwork had already been done from our point of view,” he says.

RBS partnered alongside Barclays to provide a £450 million credit facility to Croda, allowing it to pay £410 million for rival firm Uniquema, comprising of £370 million in cash and £40 million to fund pension liabilities.

The deal was effectively a reverse takeover, which Keith Froud of law firm Eversheds says was “high-profile, high value and highly complex”. Croda, which is a speciality chemicals firm that makes surfactants and speciality lipids used in a variety of cosmetic creams, lotions and even health foods, was the smaller of the two businesses, and had a turnover of £306 million to the end of 2005, which was about half of Uniquema’s £626 million.

“Due to the size of its target, it involved a de-listing and then re-listing of its shares, and I believe this was the first time that this process was undertaken since Stock Exchange rules changed,” explains Froud.

When the deal completed in September, the management team said it expected the acquisition to be earnings neutral by the end of 2007, but that synergies created between the two businesses should mean the deal actually enhances earnings by the end of 2008.

Croda’s chief executive, Mike Humphrey, argued that there was both a “compelling financial case” and a “clear industrial logic” to the deal, which strengthens Croda’s global position in its core markets, particularly in consumer care products – responsible for 68 per cent of its total sales. Similarly, the merger adds a bunch of new lines (including sunscreens and crop care products) to its portfolio, while boosting its presence in growing markets – particularly India.

3 Jemella (MBO)

Martin Penny’s route from environmental company boss to stylist to the stars (well, sort of) is a rather convoluted one, but it centres around a hair salon in Yeadon.

The head of environmental consultancy OHS befriended salon owner Robert Powls, who told him about this great new ceramic hair straightener taking the US by storm known as GHD (Good Hair Days). The two men teamed up with Penny’s friend (and Guiseley football club boss) Gary Douglas, and secured the UK distribution rights to the product in 2000.

After a slow start (with Powls cold-calling London salons), the business suddenly took off and within 12 months the Ilkleybased firm was selling £10 million-worth of kit and struggling to get hold of enough of straighteners. It persuaded Koran manufacturer Kica to massively increase production (jumping from one factory to six – three of which exclusively supply Jemella) and sales continued to rocket to a forecasted £70 million by 2006.

In August, Penny agreed a deal to buy-out Powls and Douglas (who had since become largely sleeping partners) in a deal which valued the firm at £55 million.

The product’s popularity has continued to rise – fuelled by celebrity endorsements from the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Renee Zellwegeer and actress-turned-fashion designer Sadie Frost. The buy-out was backed with debt funding from Barclays and equity from LDC, whose investment director, John Swarbrick, says he was “convinced that the business had plenty of growth left in it, not only in the UK but also geographically and through product extensions”.

“It’s one of the few iconic brands to have emerged from Yorkshire over the past few years,” says Tim Simpson of Park Place Corporate Finance. Swarbrick says that since completion the firm has continued to prosper.

“It’s performed even better then we’ve expected. It had an exceptionally good Christmas and it outperformed all of our expectations for the first two months of the New Year,” he says.

4 Richmond Foods (sale)

Richmond Foods, the ice cream specialist based in the Leeming Bar area of North Yorkshire, has grown rapidly in recent years by becoming a consolidator in its sector, snapping up a series of smaller independents, as well as the UK-based ice cream arm of food giant Nestlé. It now has a portfolio of well-known ice cream brands such as Fab, Smarties and Strawberry Mivvi, and it made decent profits – £14.4 million in the year to October 2005, on a turnover of £140 million.

Inevitably, the hunter eventually became the prey and in May 2006 the company agreed to a takeover by Ruby Investments, a vehicle owned by US-based venture capital firm Oaktree Capital. The £182 million bid, a premium of almost 24 per cent of the firm’s market cap prior to the initial approach, was unanimously recommended by the board. Chairman Ross Warburton said it represented “good value for the business and its prospects”.

Eversheds’ Keith Froud says the sale also made strategic sense as it would give Richmond more resources to carry out further acquisitions in what is still a very fragmented market.

“The management had identified a strategy to take the business forwards which involved it being consolidator in the sector. However, it is not a short-term one and might well involve some pain before the benefits are borne out. The fact that it was a listed company and in the public eye didn’t sit too well with that,” he says.

Oaktree’s swoop also places Richmond at the heart of a much larger, Europe-wide operation as it already owns Italian producer Roncandin.

“Our goal is for Richmond to remain focused on its core geographical market but, once combined with Roncadin, to leverage both companies’ market positions to enable us to serve customers on a pan-European basis,” said Oaktree managing director Caleb Kramer.

5 Principal Hotels (sale)

A deal which sees the Harrogate-based Principal Hotels chain snapped up by private equity firm Permira. The firm, which was previously owned by a joint venture between chief executive Tony Troy and Royal Bank of Scotland, had six established hotels operating in the upper-mid range of the hotel sector. These include the Metropole in Leeds, The Royal York, The George in Edinburgh and The Russell in London.

The deal, which completed in September, was just the latest in a number in which Troy has been involved. He originally led a £68 million buy-out in 1994 and then sold the 16-strong business to Japanese bank Nomura in 2001. He proceeded to buy five of these back (with funding from RBS) in 2004 and embarked on heavy investment and refurbishment of the properties, before selling once more to Permira.

Permira has a history of investments in this sector, most notably in Travelodge. It bought the budget hotel chain (along with Little Chef) from Compass Group in 2002 and then sold it to Dubai International Capital for £675 million. It announced plans to place Troy at the centre of a business which has plans to acquire and develop up to 40 four-star hotels, and narrowly missed out on a bid to buy the De Vere chain. Troy promised the chain would look at further acquisitions across Europe and would target the residential conference market.

Permira partner Martin Clarke says that it feels Principal Hotels “will act as a platform for what is still a very fragmented market in the UK”.

The fund has already cashed in on the value of its new assets, completing a £270 million, 25-year sale-and-leaseback on the properties with fund manager aAIM.

6 Software Solutions Partners (float)

A quick win for both the management team at Software Solutions Partners and its private equity backers, which has seen the value of the Halifax-based firm soar in value in just four years.

David Rasche and Laurence Walker led a four-strong management team which bought SSP – a software firm that has developed a lucrative niche in the insurance and brokerage industry – from US-based Computer Services Corporation for £20.8 million in 2002, backed by Barclays. In October 2004, it took on VC investment from LDC, which paid £11.3 million for a 30 per cent stake in the business. It then went on to back a number of acquisitions including the £9.8 million acquisition of Holdgrove – the firm which created commercial brokerage package Sectornet – in December 2005.

LDC’s John Swarbrick says the deal represented a “perfect example of a business that has used private equity to build a prominent position in a highgrowth market ahead of successfully listing on Aim”.

The company achieved its listing at the beginning of October, raising £31 million in a deal which valued it at over £70 million. The cash has been used to buy back shares from its previous backers and management, pay down debts and to raise funds for future acquisitions.

“We are an ambitious business, we have doubled revenues over the first four years and we are looking to grow at an even faster rate,” says Rasche. “The flotation will give us the market profile and financial strength to achieve our future objectives.”

7 Findel (acquisitions)

Excellent bit of business from Findel, the mail order catalogue and educational supplies business based in Burley-in-Wharefedale.

The company, which had a turnover of £527 million in the year to March 2006, is on a mission to increase profitability by driving more of its business online and has recently closed 30 of its discount outlet stores.

In October, it picked up the business and assets of four separate operations that had been owned by European Home Retail – parent firm of the Farepak hamper scheme – for £34 million. These assets were quite diverse, and included a minority stake in one of Findel’s own hamper businesses. The gems, however, were a couple of niche websites with big reputations among their core audiences.

One of these, I Want One Of Those, has become a market leader in the online sale of gifts and gadgets with sales of around £10 million a year.

The other is Kitbag, a specialist online retailer of official football, rugby and other kits, which has affiliation deals with some of the biggest brands in the beautiful game – handling the online stores of FC Barcelona, Celtic, Chelsea and Manchester United, among others.

Although it made a loss in the year to April 2006, its unaudited turnover had jumped by almost 50 per cent to £14.3 million.

Another acquired business, Kleeneze, is a network marketing firm offering catalogues full of toiletries and cleaning products through a network of more than 14,000 distributors. Its unaudited EBITDA of £6 million was made on revenues of £89 million.

In total, the four businesses acquired had revenues of £113 million, and Findel’s chief executive Patrick Jolly says that he expects them to be earnings enhancing within their first full financial year (starting in April).

“These acquisitions are directly in line with our stated strategy to grow our home shopping business profitably through bolt-on acquisitions and maximise the return on the assets that division employs,” says Jolly. “We’ve identified substantial opportunities for both cost and revenue synergies and working capital efficiencies which will be realised over the medium term.”

8 Northern Foods (sale)

Decent buy-out opportunity created from the Yorkshire-based biscuits-to-pizza food group Northern Foods’ plan to offload businesses that generate up to 40 per cent of its revenues to become a more focused food production company.

One of the businesses it has judged to be non-core is the food distribution business NFT, which is being taken private by a management buy-out team backed by Phoenix Equity Partners and Royal Bank of Scotland.

The company, which was started in 1979, distributes chilled foods directly from factories into store networks and has major supply chain agreements in place with Sainsbury and Asda. It has a turnover of £111 million and an operating profit of £3.9 million, but has been sold in a deal work £51.2 million to the two-strong team of MD David Frankish and development director Charles Stephens.

Roger Powell of Royal Bank of Scotland, which provided debt funding to the management team, describes the buy-out as “a lovely deal”.

“It was one of those that had a couple of issues, but once you got into the business and talked it through with management, you realised how good it was,” he says.

Meanwhile, Frankish says the buyout gives the firm a “tremendous platform from which to embark on the next stage of development”.

9 Adare (MBO)

Secondary MBO which sees Irish print management firm Adare bought out from its parent group and relocated to a site at Clayton West, near Huddersfield. The company, which is more famous for its two principal trading brands – Prontaprint and Kall Kwik – has been taken over by a seven-strong management team led by new chief exec Robert Whiteside.

The deal was funded by Bank of Scotland’s Integrated Finance team, which offers debt-and-equity packages for buyouts that leave management teams in control of a majority stake. This deal, completed at the end of March 2006, sparked a reorganisation of the business which has seen subsidiaries amalgamated to make things easier for customers such as Waitrose, HM Revenue & Customs and its new backer’s parent, HBOS.

The firm, which was established in 1991, had a turnover of around £160 million in the year prior to the deal and employs more than 1,200 people.

Whiteside says the move to the company’s largest site in West Yorkshire centralises head office functions and enables a faster decision-making process.

It intends to expand its existing model and work more closely with Kall Kwik and Prontaprint franchisees, which are responsible for around eight per cent of group turnover. It also plans to investigate opportunities for expansion in Europe.

“We now have a perfect opportunity to unlock the significant untapped potential of the Group and achieve our ambitious growth targets,” says Whiteside.

10 Trustmarque (MBO)

Value: £30 million

Differentiation between software resellers is often difficult – can one firm shifting boxes of Microsoft Office really claim to do it better than another? – but York-based Trustmarque has managed to create something of a niche in its sector, which goes some way towards explaining why so many companies were queueing up for a piece of the action when its previous owner decided to put it up for sale.

The company had been owned by Royal Bank Equity Finance – a division of RBS – but had established itself as a leading ‘large account’ reseller. In fact, it is one of the biggest ‘large account’ resellers of Microsoft products in the UK, as well as shifting lots of software for the likes of Adobe, McAfee and Surfcontrol.

It has done this by targeting public sector organisations which need huge numbers of licenses, and counts the Home Office, HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions and the NHS as some of its biggest customers.

As a result, when it came up for sale last year, there were plenty of interest from both trade buyers and equity houses, with a management team backed by LDC (£10 million) and Royal Bank of Scotland (£20 million) eventually taking control in August.

LDC’s investment director John Swarbrick says the firm’s knowledge of licenses and license agreements is a factor that clients value.

“We’re backing a strong management team that has been instrumental in establishing Trustmarque as the biggest and most respected reseller in the market,” he said.

The company has seen sales rise from £74 million in 2003 to £121million in 2006, and managing director Ross Miller is predicting a £200 million turnover by 2010. It plans to do this by increasing its pentration into the corporate market, where it already counts Amec and William Hill as customers.

“We’ve seen rapid growth over recent years as PCs and software become essential to the day-to-day running of organisations of all sizes,” said Miller.

11 Heywood Williams (acquisition)

A useful deal for Huddersfield-based Heywood Williams – the huge building products firm with a turnover of over £262 million. The company splashed out £48 million in September for Carlisle Brass, which is an architectural hardware firm supplying door handles, hinges, locks, and other fittings mainly to the housebuilding sector, where it has developed close links to customers like Wimpey, Barratt and Persimmon. In fact, residential housebuilders make up around 60 per cent of the company’s £31.1 million turnover.

However, one of the most significant aspects of the deal is that Carlisle Brass (which had been solely owned by its founder, Robin Graham) has a manufacturing facility in the Hangzhou district of China. Heywood Williams’ chief executive Robert Barr said the deal provided the firm – whose two main sources of revenue are modular homes and PVCu windows – with access to a market that is profitable, stable and growing.

Graham has been paid an initial £30 million in cash, £5 million in shares and has had a further £5 million of Carlisle Brass debts paid off. Another £8 million is dependent on him remaining with the firm for 18 months. Robert Barr, Heywood Williams’ group chief executive, says, “The acquisition marks the start of the next phase of growth for Heywood Williams and is expected to create sustainable value for shareholders. It represents an excellent fit with our existing hardware business and provides us with some exciting opportunities going forward.”

12 Oval (dev cap)

Joint funding arrangement between Barclays Leveraged Finance and Lloyds TSB’s Acquisition Finance arm which has given Wakefield-based insurance broker Oval a war chest to continue its aggressive acquisitions strategy.

The brokerage market has faced increasing amounts of restraint and regulation in recent years, making it harder for smaller independents to complete. As a result, there has been some consolidation in the industry, and Oval is carving out a niche picking up businesses that serve the construction industry.

The company, which was formed from an £11 million reverse takeover of the RP Hodson insurance business in 2003, has been backed by investment trust Caledonia, but the new deal allows it to continue making acquisitions until its eventual stockmarket listing.

Chief executive Philip Hodson hasn’t been shy in spending this cash – it has bought six other brokerage firms since completing this deal last February, including Sheffield-based Sheafmoor, Edinburgh-based Futurity and Huddersfield-based Wilkinson Rogers.

However, Hodson says the group allows acquired businesses to keep their identities and management team, but also benefit from a more specialist risk management knowledge and sophisticated back office systems offered by its group structure.

“Our financial success is down to putting clients and staff first,” says the boss of the £34 million-turnover firm. “We have big plans and big ideas. We are still a relatively young company, and we are only just hitting our stride.”

13 PlusNet (sale)

By its own admission, 2006 was a “challenging” year for Sheffield-based internet service provider PlusNet. The company, which was started as an offshoot to Choice Peripherals by founder Paul Cusack in 1997, was sold two years later to US firm Insight Enterprises. It received its exit in 2004 as the firm underwent an Aim listing which left chief exec Lee Strafford in charge of day-to-day affairs.

The company had intended to grow by riding on the back of the huge increase in home broadband subscriptions, and things seemed to be going well – turnover doubled from £17.5 million by the end of 2003 to £35.2 million by December 05, but then a series of problems (including the loss of customers’ emails) led to a slowdown in subscribers.

BT, which had already been working with PlusNet on a number of projects and had signed a memorandum of understanding with the firm in 2004, sensed an opportunity to acquire PlusNet’s 200,000 broadband subscribers after its shares plummeted from an all-time high of 400p down to around 157p at the time the bid was announced, which gave it a market cap of around £53 million. Its offer of £67 million was accepted by the board, with Stafford stating that there were “considerable benefits” to the merger in a sector which was fast consolidating: “BT recognises the importance of retaining PlusNet’s identity and culture and I believe this will give rise to exciting opportunities for PlusNet, our customers and our employees.”

The deal received regulatory approval in January.

14 Rixonway Kitchens (MBO)

Interesting deal which sees half of a management team that bought into Dewsbury-based Rixonway way back in 1989 finally realise their investment, and a further four directors rolling over their investment in a buyout backed by August Private Equity (previously known as Kleinwort Capital), which paid £4 million for a majority stake.

Under the terms of the latest buyout announced in June 2006, Curtis Wright, Harry Turpin and Sandra Mather have cashed in their chips and made way for a four-strong management team led by former sales director Paul Rose. Rixonway, which made pre-tax profits of £2.2 million on sales of £16.4m in the year to February 2006, specialises in providing replacement kitchens to the social housing sector.

“There have been a lot of private equity investments in the sector due to the Decent Homes Standard initiative,” explains David Hardless of Park Place Corporate Finance, which advised management shareholders on the deal.

“There is a belief that as a result of the initiative there will be significant amounts of public sector investment in social housing for years to come.”

August Private Equity has brought in Robert Horvath to the firm’s holding company, Rollfold Group, as nonexecutive chairman. Horvath, who alongside fellow directors has been given a “significant” stake in the business, is a former managing director of Interior Services Group which has developed a reputation as something of a specialist in landing public sector contracts.

“August Equity’s investment and support to Rixonway will be incredibly beneficial in allowing us to further develop our business, which is showing signs of strong growth,” said Rose.

15 Humdinger (sale)

A quick return on their investment for the team of six people who set up Hull-based Humdinger in 2001. The business, which specialises in selling healthy snacks imported from around the world, deals directly with supermarkets like Asda and Tesco.

Its products include chips made from fruit such as mango, bananas and pineapple, as well as non-dairy chocolate bars and fruit sticks branded as Humzingers.

The company also provides packaging, marketing and distribution services for other businesses, including US-based raisins firm Sunsweet and London-based co-operative Community Foods (which owned 25 per cent of the Humdinger business prior to this deal).

The business has been bought for £10 million by London-based Zetar, a confectionery firm which floated on AIM in 2005 that is growing its own healthy snacks division. However, there is an earn-out element of up to £3 million, which will keep Humdinger’s management team (led by MD Phil Whitehead) in place until September 2008 at the earliest.

“Humdinger is an innovative, fast growing company with an experienced and creative management team that also provides us with an entry into the rapidly expanding ‘healthier’ fruit snacks sector,” said Zetar chief exec Ian Blackburn.

16 Peter Black (MBO)

This one might have been ranked slightly higher if we’d have been able to publish a proper valuation, but whatever it was that turnaround specialist Endless paid for the £223 million-turnover firm Peter Black, it was likely to be less than the £100 million paid when 3i backed a public-to-private buy-out of the firm back in 2000.

Endless’s takeover of Peter Black – a business set up in the 1940s which sources everything from shoes to handbags for the likes of M&S and Next – freed the company from a “very significant” debt burden, according to Endless director and co-founder Darren Forshaw.

“Despite the cost-down pressure suppliers to retailers have faced over the past few years, the business had been profitable,”

Forshaw explained to EN shortly after the deal completed. “They’ve managed to deliver consistent growth in both top-line and earnings by increasing market share, but that has been disguised in its accounts by the heavy debt burden.”

That debt has now been restructured, allowing chairman Gordon Black (son of the eponymous founder) and chief executive Stephen Lister the chance to react more quickly and to snap up decent deals without worrying as much about the firm’s debt profile. Cash will also be available for suitable acquisitions, if they fit with the group’s strategy.

The deal, which was completed within four months, was complicated by the fact that the business has four separate divisions trading across lots of countries (it deals with 210 different factories in Eastern Europe alone). Forshaw paid tribute to both the advisors and to Lloyds TSB and HSBC – both of which have put in debt funding – for their persistence.

“It takes a while to get your head around a business like that, and it’s fair to say that without the commitment of a number of very good advisors, the transaction would have struggled to happen,” he says.

17 AFI (acquisition)

Wakefield-based AFI Aerial Platforms is expecting a lift in sales following its merger with local rival Uplift, which was backed with a £15 million investment from Barclays Private Equity (BPE).

The company, which rents and sells aerial access platforms to construction firms, cleaning contractors and other firms which need to work safely at height, is now the second-biggest player in its market as a result of the deal, with a combined turnover of £25 million, 200 employees and more than 3,200 different units for hire.

BPE’s investment director Steve O’Hare also joined the board of AFI-Uplift once the deal was completed in September, and he believes there are more opportunities for consolidation in the sector. Moreover, new ‘work at height’ regulations and demands for contractors to provide safer access to sites should ensure that demand remains strong.

“We are backing the leading management team in a fast-growing niche of the UK plant hire market,” says O’Hare.

18 Philpotts (acquisition)

Richard Tonks, the Doncaster-born retail maestro who has years of experience in the retail sector, obviously sees significant potential in the business model of posh butty shop Philpotts.

Tonks, who founded the Savers Health and Beauty chain before becoming non-exec chair of Leeds-based fashion chain Republic (where he oversaw a rapid store expansion programme), bought the Chester-based business from founder Phil Brown in September, with a view to turning it into a “premium” sandwich retailer.

“He’d actually come across Philpotts a couple of years earlier and had stayed in contact with the owner because he’d felt there was a deal to be done,” explains Tim Simpson of Park Place Corporate Finance, which acted as lead advisor on the deal. “Once it became clear that there was, we helped to pull it together.”

The £8 million deal (funded by Lloyds TSB Corporate) sees Tonks take a majority stake in the firm. Founder Phil Brown, who opened Philpotts’ first store in 1985 and built it into a £7 million business, retains 25 per cent but will now take a back seat.

Tonks’ immediate plan is to add a further six or seven sandwich stores to the 13 he bought – the bulk of which are in the North West. The plan now is to target other major cities across the North and Scotland, looking at multiple openings in some of the larger cities.

19 Autocruise (MBI)

Motorhomes group based in Mexborough which has carved out a niche for selling vehicles under the Autocruise, Pioneer and Thoroughbred brands. The business was founded in 1988 by chairman John Cockburn and has sales of around £16 million a year.

It has now been bought by a management team led by buy-in candidate Joe Anwyll, who was previously managing director of Hull-based caravan firm Swift. He has received equity funding to the tune of £5.9 million from Manchester-based VC firm Inflexion Private Equity and a further £8.5 million of debt funding from Royal Bank of Scotland.

The company recently invested more than £3 million in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Mexbourough, near Warrington, and the management plans to take advantage of increased capacity by boosting sales in what is a growing market – sales of motor homes have increased from 3,500 vehicles in 1994 to more than 8,800 last year.

Roger Powell of RBS explains this is largely due to a more adventurous, affluent older population who take these cruisers on longer, pan-European trips.

“It’s not exactly my cup of tea, but these are upmarket vehicles and you can see the care and attention that has gone into putting them together,” he says. “At that age, you don’t want to be worrying about whether this thing you’re taking on a such a long journey is safe or reliable.”

The company was named as UK Motorhome Manafuacturer of the Year by an industry magazine and its Autocruise Stardream won a top prize from the Caravan Club.

20 Camira Fabrics (MBO)

Buy-out completed last April which gives management at Huddersfield-based Interface Fabrics freedom from its American parent.

The firm, which started life as Camborne Fabrics in 1974, was bought by US carpet manufacturer Interface in 1997, which also owns the huge Firth Carpets site in nearby Halifax. In fact, it was the US firm’s decision to concentrate more closely on its carpet business that led to this £16.5 million deal, which has seen a four-strong management led by MD Paul Goodall take a majority stake in the business.

The company, which has a turnover of £35 million and 220 staff employed across three sites in Huddersfield, Mirfield and Nottingham, makes hardwearing fabrics generally used on seating for trams, buses and in “commercial interiors” such as cinemas. It makes more than seven million metres of fabric each year, which it exports to over 80 countries. Since the buy-out, it has completed work on a new factory in Lithuania and has renamed itself Camira Fabrics.

The buy-out was backed by Bank of Scotland’s Integrated Finance division. Managing director Paul Goodall says that although the company will continue to have close ties with Interface (on the design of environmentally friendly fabrics, for instance), the team is “proud to be returning the company to Yorkshire ownership”.

“It will give us added freedom to take advantage of opportunities in new market segments,” he says.

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