Eversheds Sutherland advises on £130m flotation

Eversheds Sutherland has advised long-standing client SimplyBiz, a business support company, on its IPO to AIM with an initial market capitalisation of £130m.

The IPO raised £30m from an institutional placing of ordinary shares at 170p and £34.6m for selling shareholders.

SimplyBiz is the UK’s leading provider of compliance and business services to directly authorised financial advisers and supports around 3,500 customers. It employs more than 200 staff and has a membership base in excess of 6,000.

Founded by Ken Davy, SimplyBiz has been managed by joint Chief Executives Matt Timmins and Neil Stevens since 2010, together with Sarah Turvey as Chief Operating Officer. Over this period, revenues have grown from £12m to £44m with profits increasing by 17% to £4.8m in 2017.

The Eversheds Sutherland team was led by Corporate Partner Alison Starr and Corporate Associates Russell Naglis and Tom Howell. The corporate team was supported by: Partners Mathew Gorringe (employee share schemes), Jason Wurzal (banking) and Andrew Henderson (financial services), Legal Director Louise Lightfoot (employment), Senior Associate James Dunlop (financial services), Associate Thomas Donohoe (banking) and Associate Charlotte Nasey (employment).

Matt Timmins, joint CEO, SimplyBiz commented:

“The service we received from the Eversheds Sutherland corporate team was absolutely first class. They worked exceptionally hard for us throughout the process, balancing their technical expertise and know-how with an efficient and commercial attitude to getting the job done.

The team undertook their work with speed and diligence and also helped our internal team with some of the ‘heavy lifting’ of administration work that inevitably comes with a process like this one. We have a huge amount of trust and respect for this team and we look forward to working with them over the long term. We quite simply couldn’t have done it without them.”

Alison Starr commented:

“We are delighted to advise our long-standing client on its successful IPO and to work so effectively with the experienced management team to get them the result they needed. The Eversheds Sutherland team worked very well with the company and its other advisers throughout.”