Regional Breakfast seminar

On the 23^rd of April, MarktoMarket hosted its second regional breakfast seminar of the year, this time located in Bristol. Doug Lawson, CEO and Co-Founder of MarktoMarket, was joined by Katherine Broadhurst, Corporate Finance Partner at Azets. With great attendance at the Mercure Grand Hotel, below is a summary of the discussion that took place throughout the morning.  You can view the video from the seminar here.

Key themes

Below are some of the key themes and observations that emerged from the breakfast seminar:

The region should not be seen as one homogenous market – Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, North Wales, Cornwall etc all have their own mini-ecosystems and idiosyncrasies. However, some characteristics are prevalent across the region. This includes the high proportion of family businesses, the general popularity of MBO/EoT routes for exit and the high average age of business owners relative to the rest of the country.

Direct PE (private equity) activity is low relative to some other UK regions (namely SE and NW) but there are plenty of bolt-on deals being completed by PE-backed platforms which has led to more PE money following into the region than actually observed, albeit indirectly. Regional funding pots are quite generous such as the Development Bank of Wales and British Business Bank who are funding VCs for capital deployment in the region.

The region over-indexes on certain sectors. This is namely food & drink, healthcare (especially supplies) and IT security which is driven by the ‘cyber triangle’ of Cheltenham, Cardiff and Newport. The perceived access challenges of some of the more remote areas of the region can create a barrier to attracting new businesses but conversely, helps employee retention.

Deal timelines are still long which seems common to the rest of the UK. There have been a lot of Q1 ’24 deals that have been completed but were originally expected to close in Q4 2023. In saying that, overall conciseness is that the landscape is improving and pipelines are getting stronger compared to any time during 2023.

Thank you to all those who attended and a special thanks to Katherine Broadhurst for joining the panel.

Or click here to watch the video.

MARKTOMARKET

MarktoMarket collects rich data on private businesses, particularly in the small and mid-market. Our easily searchable database allows our advisory, private equity and corporate customers to identify, analyse and price investments and monitor market trends to create their own content.

MarktoMarket’s auditable data gives users the confidence that they are dealing with intelligence that can be trusted.

To continue the discussions about how data can support your business, contact Olga Melnyk at olga@marktomarket.io.