LEADING regional heavyweight law firm Howes Percival has acted for the exiting shareholders of automotive fleet inspection, refurbishment, storage and logistics group Paragon Automotive Limited in its £105 million sale to British Car Auctions.
In what has been reported as one of the UK’s largest deals to complete so far post-Brexit, the minimum of £105 million consideration, could rise a further £30 million if the group hits trading targets over the next two years.
The deal was handled by the corporate team members of Howes Percival’s automotive sector group. The team has been advising clients in the automotive sector for more than 50 years.
Commenting on the deal, lead partner Gerald Couldrake said: “We have acted for Paragon since we set the company up for our clients in 2005. It has been an incredible journey. When it started, Paragon had no customers, just a large site at Thurleigh in Bedfordshire that needed filling up with an awful lot of cars. Over the last 11 years, and four acquisitions later, Paragon has become a very profitable business turning over in excess of £150 million and making more than £11m of profit annually.
“We were set an extremely ambitious target for completion: three weeks from signing Heads of Agreement. The time we spent in constructing the key commercial and key legal terms of the deal during the negotiation of those Heads was crucial to achieving that target. For a deal of this size, the teamwork we were able to bring in to help manage the process was a critical factor.
“It has been a privilege to be part of the team that helped create such a fantastic business. The deal was negotiated and executed in under a month, which required a lot of commitment and hard work from my team. We are delighted to have enabled the shareholders to achieve a superb exit from the business, whilst securing the future for the business within the British Car Auctions group.”
Founding shareholder Robert Wilkinson said: “Howes Percival were my obvious choice as my lawyers to handle this significant transaction. They’ve acted for me for the last 30 years and, as usual, I trusted them to execute and deliver a complex deal to a tight timescale, to cut through the detail and keep focused on the big picture. Once again, we have achieved a superb result for the shareholders and the business and its employees. Howes Percival are an integral part of my team, and we will continue to work together as I concentrate on building my residential property development business, Mulberry Property Developments Limited, into a significant house builder in the Midlands.”
Howes Percival was a finalist in the Regional Law Firm of the Year 2016 category in the highly prestigious The Lawyer Awards.
