Autologic

Deal Summary

Catalyst Corporate Finance advised ISIS Equity Partners on the secondary management buy-out of Autologic Diagnostics Holdings Limited (Autologic).

Autologic, formed in 1999, employs 98 people operating from its head office near Oxford and overseas offices in the US and Hong Kong.

The business supplies independent garages with a diagnostic tool and back-up support to enable them to service and repair modern passenger cars. The Autologic solution is a critical tool for the independent garage without which they would not be able to carry out all repairs or servicing for their customers given the high level of electronics and computers used in modern cars. They currently supply diagnostic tools for fifteen European vehicle manufacturers.

Autologic is one of the fastest growing vehicle diagnostic services companies in the world with a growth of 125% over the last two years. In 2009, the management team of Kevin Finn, Peter Toland and Ian Jones were backed by VCT funds controlled by Foresight and mezzanine funding from funds controlled by Octopus.

What difference did we make?

Catalyst acted as lead advisers to ISIS and Newco on the deal and the team of Paul Vanstone and James Guglia was led by partner Mark Humphries.

Our role was to project manage the transaction from start to finish in 8 weeks supporting ISIS, Newco and management as follows:

• Supporting management draft a business plan and investor and banking presentations
• Advising Newco on raising senior debt and negotiate banking terms
• Project managing financial, commercial, legal, IT and insurance due diligence
• Supporting ISIS throughout the investment review process and providing strategic input on their investment case and exit planning.

Catalyst played an integral role in delivering a complex transaction in a short time frame, including bank funding, by supporting the deal with a senior advisory team with extensive experience in management buy-outs in the current market.