2021 in Numbers
Source: Stifel Europe as at 3 January, 2022
2021 Highlights
2021 Case Studies
KBW acted as Key Adviser and Sole Global Coordinator on the £60m IPO of PensionBee (LSE: PBEE)
Transaction Type: Initial Public Offering
Industry: Financial Services
Stifel Role: Key Adviser and Sole Global Coordinator
PensionBee Group Plc (LSE: PBEE) is a leading online pensions provider in the UK with more than 600,000 Registered Customers, approximately 155,000 Active Customers and approximately £2.25bn of Assets under Administration (“AuA”) as at 30 September 2021. PensionBee is a direct-to-consumer financial technology company, with a mission to make pensions simple, so that everyone can look forward to a happy retirement. It delivers a leading customer proposition to pension holders in the UK defined contribution pensions market, catering for many people who have historically struggled to understand, prepare for and manage their retirements confidently. PensionBee’s technology platform allows its customers to combine their pensions and invest in a range of online plans, forecast how much they expected to have saved by the time they retire, and efficiently withdraw all or part of their pension from the age of 55.
The Company was co-founded in 2014 by its Chief Executive Officer, Romi Savova, and its Chief Technology Officer, Jonathan Lister Parsons, to simplify pension savings in the UK following a difficult pension transfer experience for Romi Savova using traditional platforms.
KBW acted as Key Adviser and Sole Global Coordinator in raising gross proceeds of £60 million for PensionBee in an oversubscribed placing. Proceeds will be used to accelerate growth through advertising and marketing, for investment in the technology platform and general corporate purposes. 25% of the total fundraise came from blue-chip US investors and accounts. KBW was appointed as Corporate Broker to PensionBee shortly following the IPO.
KBW served as Sole Financial and Rule 3 Adviser to AFH Financial Group plc on its acquisition by Flexpoint Ford
Transaction Type: M&A
Industry: Wealth & Asset Management
Stifel Role: Sole Financial Adviser
AFH Financial Group plc (“AFH”) is a UK wealth manager with over £6bn in AUA. KBW acted as sole financial and Rule 3 advisor under the Takeover Code to AFH in connection with the recommended all-cash acquisition by Cortina Bidco Limited (a newly incorporated company indirectly controlled by funds managed by Flexpoint Ford LLC). The transaction represented a market-leading valuation for the Core Wealth division when considering the Bidco offer on a sum-of-the-parts basis between Core Wealth and Protection Broking.
This represents another milestone for KBW in London, further enhancing KBW’s leadership position in the Wealth & Asset Management sector in the UK. A first public-to-private transaction acting as sole financial advisor and Rule 3 advisor. KBW delivered an outstanding result for shareholders with a 40.9% premium to the volume-weighted average price of 340.7 pence per share for the six-month period ended on the pre-announcement date (22 January 2021).
Stifel Served as Joint Global Coordinator on a $225m Equity Raise for Diversified Energy
Transaction Type: Equity Capital Markets
Industry: Energy & Natural Resources
Stifel Role: Global Coordinator
Diversified Energy Company is the largest independent conventional producer and operator of onshore natural gas & oil wells in Appalachia, USA, with a well hedged and predictable dividend payout of 40% of FCF and a market cap of c.$1.4bn. The Company made its first acquisition outside of the Appalachian basin, in its Central Regional Focus Area, in April 2021, buying natural gas weighted producing wells and associated midstream assets in Louisiana and announced a similar transaction in Texas in May alongside an equity placing.
Stifel acted as Joint Global Coordinator on the FTSE 250 Company’s $225m (£159m) placing and retail offer. The Fundraise represents the largest E&P transaction completed in London since Energean’s $265 million placing in July 2019, also led by Stifel. The transaction was significantly oversubscribed and priced at a 2.5% discount to the 30-day VWAP and 8.3% discount from the closing mid-market price the day prior. The fundraise received significant demand from Tier 1 Blue Chip institutions and high quality hedge funds capable of providing ongoing equity capital support.
KBW Served as a Joint Global Co-ordinator and Joint Bookrunner on Peel Hunt Limited’s (PEEL LN) £112 million Initial Public Offering on London Stock Exchange, AIM Segment
Transaction Type: Initial Public Offering
Industry: Financials
KBW Role: Joint Global Co-ordinator, Joint Bookrunner and Corporate Broker
Peel Hunt is a leading UK mid and small-cap focused investment bank, operating across three business segments: Investment Banking, Research & Distribution and Execution & Trading. The Group has more than 30 years of unbroken profitability and a consistent track record of investment and growth. In FY21 (March year-end) Peel Hunt generated revenues of £197m with a profit before tax margin of 39%. It generates a consistent revenue mix of 40%, 40% and 20% across Investment Banking, Execution Trading and Research Distribution respectively.
KBW acted as Joint Global Co-ordinator and Joint Bookrunner, being appointed after a competitive process, and subsequently also acting as Corporate Broker to Peel Hunt. Choosing KBW as the only bank to lead the IPO is a further endorsement of KBW’s superior specialist investment banking and distribution capabilities.
The successful placing opened the UK IPO markets post summer and was marketed during an unprecedented deal pipeline. The book was comfortably oversubscribed attracting strong support from value oriented investors with a focus on dividend yield as well as retail investors who participated through intermediaries using Peel Hunt’s REX technology platform. The deal size was £112m, the Company raised £40m in primary capital, long-term shareholders were provided with appropriate liquidity to cover tax liabilities from the reorganisation and a modest level of additional liquidity. The market capitalisation at IPO was £280m (pricing at 228p per share). The shares traded +2.6% at open, reaching an intra-day high of 234p (+4.2%).
Stifel acted as Sole Financial Adviser to funds managed by Ufenau Capital Partners (“UCP”) on the sale of a majority stake in Swiss IT Security Group (“SITS”) to Triton Partners.
Transaction Type: Sell side M&A
Industry: Cybersecurity / Technology
Stifel Role: Sole Financial Adviser
SITS is the largest independent pure play security services provider in DACH and Benelux, with more than 19 locations and over 600 highly qualified consultants and security engineers. As a one-stop-shop, the Company offers engineering and consulting, managed security services, product maintenance as well as Service Level Agreements (”SLAs”) in addition to hard and software resale. The Company generates 90% of recurring and reoccurring revenue from a blue chip and SME customer base of more than 2,000 accounts in the public, pharmaceuticals, financial services, industrials and retail sectors. Since UCP invested in SITS in 2017, the Company has established a leading position through double-digit organic growth and 17 bolt-on acquisitions.
Stifel acted as sole financial adviser to UCP and management shareholders in a broad and very competitive auction process with both strategic and large cap financial buyers involved. The transaction closed in October and generated a return of over 12x money and an IRR of more than 150%.
Stifel acted as Joint Bookrunner and Broker on a $180m Equity Placing & Sell-Down for Adriatic Metals Plc ("Adriatic")
Transaction Type: Follow-on Offering
Industry: Mining
Stifel Role: Joint Bookrunner
Adriatic Metals Plc (“Adriatic”) is an LSE and ASX listed precious and base metals developer that is advancing the Vares Silver Project in Bosnia & Herzegovina, as well as the Raska Zinc-Silver Project in Serbia. Stifel acted as Joint Bookrunner on Adriatic’s $180m follow-on equity placing and sell-down, as part of a wider $245m finance package. The Company raised total equity proceeds of $102m, comprising placing proceeds of $52 million and a $50 million equity subscription by Orion Resource Partners. The transaction is the largest mining equity raise in London since 2019¹ and the largest silver mining equity raise in London since 2008¹ and the second largest ever¹, and the finance package is Bosnia’s biggest Foreign Direct Investment (“FDI”) since independence in the early 1990s².
Concurrent with the fundraise, Stifel and the Joint Bookrunners completed a secondary sell-down of Sandfire Resources’ entire 15.9% holding in the Company for $72m.
Net proceeds will be used to commence construction of the Vares Silver Project. Proceeds combined with cash resources provide the Company with a robust balance sheet to deliver the Vares Silver Project into production, while continuing ongoing exploration activities. The transaction was oversubscribed and priced at 151.74 pence (AU$2.80), a 10.7% discount to the 10-day VWAP.
Stifel sourced 54% of institutional allocations, given its excellent institutional relationships and targeted investor marketing, focusing only on those capital pools that were most likely to participate. The fundraise received significant demand from blue chip institutions and high quality hedge funds.
1 Source: Dealogic
2 Source: Financial Times
Stifel acted as sole financial advisor to Atlas Antibodies AB (“Atlas Antibodies”) on the acquisition of Evitria SA (“Evitria”)
Transaction Type: Buy side M&A
Industry: Healthcare
Stifel Role: Advisor to Buyer
Atlas Antibodies is a leading, global developer of advanced reagents for biomedical research. Based in Stockholm, the company originates from the Human Protein Atlas project and was founded in 2006 by researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology and Uppsala University. Evitria is an expert provider of antibody expression services, with clients ranging from academic laboratories and small biotech start-ups to global biopharmaceutical companies. Evitria is deeply specialized in CHO-based transient expression of antibodies, including bispecific and fusion antibodies. It was founded in 2010 and is based in Zurich, Switzerland.
Stifel acted as sole financial adviser to Atlas Antibodies on the acquisition of Evitria. This transformational acquisition brought together a leading provider of highly validated research antibodies (Atlas Antibodies) with a front-runner in the field of custom recombinant antibody expression (Evitria). Both companies have a track record of being highly innovative providers of top quality solutions in their respective niches in the antibody industry and combined will offer a compelling proposition for a broad range of research and industry customers. Atlas Antibodies is 90% owned by Patricia Industries, a part of the internationally respected industrial holding company Investor AB, whose main owner is the Wallenberg Foundations.
KBW acted as Sole Financial Advisor and Placement Agent to Lunar on its Series D growth financing
Transaction Type: Private Placement
Industry: Technology / Fintech
KBW Role: Sole Financial Advisor and Placement Agent
Lunar is a Nordic digital challenger bank founded in 2015 in Denmark with operations in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, serving more than 325,000 users on its platform. Lunar is the only cloud-based digital banking platform to have been granted a banking license in the Nordics and is among Europe’s fastest-growing banks. In total, Lunar has raised more than EUR 300m in equity funding and received a European banking license in 2019. The new investment was secured following a rapid acceleration in growth from both private and business customers. In the last year, Lunar’s total customer base grew by more than 90% and the bank received applications from more than half of newly established Danish SMEs in 2021. Lunar is building a complete financial services offering for its Nordic customer base. In April 2021, Lunar acquired Swedish consumer lending and peer-to-peer savings platform Lendify to strengthen its position across Nordic markets and expand its capabilities in lending.
Stifel met with Lunar in September 2020 with the aim of supporting their exciting journey in the Nordics and beyond. The Lunar team selected KBW for its breadth of experience in the Fintech space and its longstanding relationships with public and private investors. The capital from the Series D funding round will enable Lunar to further invest in its Nordic expansion, especially to accelerate its strong momentum and grow its business offering as well as anticipated M&A.
KBW acted as Exclusive Financial Advisor to Coinify on its sale to Voyager Digital
Transaction Type: Private Sellside M&A
Industry: Technology / Fintech
KBW Role: Exclusive Financial Advisor
Coinify, headquartered in Hovedstaden, Denmark, is a market leading developer and operator of a virtual currency platform intended to spread the use of digital currencies. Founded in 2014, Coinify’s crypto payments infrastructure allows merchants to accept digital assets while receiving payouts in traditional currencies. It supports over 20 fiat currencies and is available in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. The company also offers a bill payment mechanism allowing users to invoice customers and accept payment in crypto.
The Coinify team selected Stifel KBW based on its Fintech expertise and experience in delivering successful outcomes in young and expanding sub-sectors. The acquisition allows Coinify to become part of Voyager’s market-leading offerings, brand, and community, and to rapidly grow merchants utilizing Coinify’s payment processing technology. The combination positions Voyager as the go-to choice for businesses and individuals seeking an efficient transaction vehicle for a wide range of purchases globally.
Stifel acted as Exclusive Financial Advisor to Inspera on its sale to CGE Partners
Transaction Type: Private Sellside M&A
Industry: Technology
Stifel Role: Exclusive Financial Advisor
Inspera is a leading global SaaS provider of e-assessment solutions to higher education and awarding bodies. The platform caters to the entire examination cycle via assessment, exam delivery and proctoring solutions. Headquartered in Oslo, with offices around Europe, Inspera has over 230+ customers globally and is rapidly expanding its footprint internationally. Inspera offers the most resilient and secure e-assessment and proctoring platform, enabling flexible assessments that can be taken with integrity anywhere both onsite and remotely. Led by highly experienced mgmt. team with strong tech expertise and a clear vision to revolutionise the education experience.
Stifel first engaged with Inspera in August 2020, recognising the business as a high quality SaaS offering positioned to benefit from industry tailwinds. Inspera's team selected Stifel's Global Technology Group due to both its deep understanding of the Software, Tech Enabled Services sectors as well as Education banking expertise. The sale provided liquidity and substantial IRR for the minority sponsor of Inspera, and secured rollover equity for key management shareholders.
Stifel Nicolaus Europe acted as financial advisor to ESSVP IV advised by Orlando Nordics
Transaction Type: Sell side M&A
Industry: Forest Products, Paper & Packaging
Stifel Role: Advisor to Seller
Bergkvist Siljan AB (publ) (“Bergkvist Siljan” or the “Group”) is a Swedish sawmilling group operating three mills in the Dalarna region, central Sweden, with total capacity of 970k m3. The Group is the result of a combination of longstanding sawmills in Sweden, the sawmill in Mora was stablished in 1897 while the one in Insjön1925 and around the turn of the century Blyberg was built. The Group produces pine and spruce centre cuts and side boards as well as planed products for construction and furniture. It also sells other wood products such as saw dust, dry chips, bark and shavings for energy and pulp production. Insjön mill owns an onsite container terminal that allows a competitive logistic set-up for exports. Approximately 40% of the volume goes to Asia, 30% to Scandinavia, 15% to the rest of Europe and the remaining to the rest of the world.
ESSVP IV and co-investors have entered into an agreement with Mayr-Melnhof Holz Holding Group to sell their portfolio sawmilling group Bergkvist Siljan for an undisclosed consideration. In 2022, for the first time in its 170 year history, Mayr-Melnhof Holz Holding Group will generate sales of over 1 billion Euro. The transaction is a highly strategic acquisition and will meaningfully increase its lumber capacity by approximately 50% to more than 2.7 million m3 of sawn timber per year. The purchased Group consist of three sawmill complexes in the Dalarna region, central Sweden. Stifel Nicolaus Europe acted as financial advisor to ESSVP IV advised by Orlando Nordics. The deal was announced on 17 December, 2021 and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.
2021 Highlighted Conferences
Stifel's Annual 'Best of British' Conference
On the 12th and 13th October, in coordination with the London Stock Exchange, the International Sales Team in New York hosted our 3rd Annual “Best of the British” Discovery Conference virtually.
12 companies that were primarily undiscovered by US investors met with 18 International Small and Mid-Cap Portfolio Managers across two days of 1x1 meetings. Previous Discovery Conference alumni include Avacta, Kape Technologies, MaxCyte, Seeing Machines, RenalytixAI, Uniphar and ZOO Digital.
- Participating companies included:
- Avacta Group plc
- Begbies Traynor Group plc
- Biffa plc
- Capital Limited
- Diaceutics plc
- DWF Group plc
- Ilika plc
- Instem plc
- musicMagpie plc
- Polarean Imaging plc
- Renewi plc
- SigmaRoc plc
An exceptional panel discussion, hosted by Stifel with participation from the LSE, Renalytix AI and Pinnacle Associates on the topic of “AIM outperformance” was the highlight of the event.
The Stifel Discovery conference is an increasingly popular event for UK listed mid-cap companies, and showcases Stifel’s ability to access the very best US investors in international equities.
Stifel’s Nasdaq Dual Listing Conference
On Wednesday, 6 October 2021, Stifel Europe organized its Nasdaq Dual-Listing Forum: “Preparing for Prime Time: An Inside Track on the Path to Nasdaq”. The event was designed as a best practice workshop for UK companies considering access to the US markets. Our keynote speaker was Adam Kostyal, Head of Listings, Nasdaq EMEA. Other speakers included senior management from Cooley LLP and Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Sponsoring the event from Stifel were Nick Moore in the healthcare sector, Nick Adams as co-head of corporate broking, Lewis Chia from ECM, and Jon Saxon from International Equity Sales in the US. This year, the event focused on the healthcare and tech sectors with over 50 corporate participants.
Save the date: Stifel's International Tech Conference
On 22 and 23 June, Stifel Europe will host our 3rd annual International Technology Conference. It will be held in person at the Kimberly Hotel in midtown Manhattan. We expect 24 participating companies including 12 from the UK and 12 from Continental Europe.
The goal is to introduce international investors in the US to some of the most compelling technology growth opportunities from across the Atlantic. The conference will include unique panels, a keynote speaker, networking dinners, and entertainment.
Stifel Spotlight: Kamalini Hull
Kamalini, why is Stifel & KBW investing in its private Growth Capital business?
While capital raisings in public markets were strong in 2021, many companies are preferring to remain private for longer than has historically been the case, aided by the volume of institutional capital that is now available to make that possible. As a transatlantic full-service investment bank, Stifel is able to offer private companies industry-focused expertise, local execution and global access to growth investors. In 2021, Stifel advised and raised €210m for Lunar through a Series D growth financing which exemplifies that businesses capabilities to raise growth capital.
Thank you for taking the time to read our 2021 Year End Review. We are confident that when we come to write this newsletter a year from now, our coverage will have again expanded, allowing us to continue to improve the quality of the service we offer to our clients.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any assistance.
From all the team at Stifel.
https://stifelinstitutional.com/global-coverage/europe/
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