Alston Elliot Limited / Inflexion Private Equity

Cavendish Corporate Finance, the specialist sell-side M&A firm, has advised the shareholders of Alston Elliot, a leading provider of television sports graphics and data solutions, on its sale to Inflexion Private Equity, one of the UK’s leading mid-market private equity firms.

Alston Elliot (AE) was founded in 1992 and is globally recognised as one of the world’s leading providers of television sports graphics and data solutions to broadcasters and governing bodies. Its head office is located in the UK with thriving subsidiary companies in South Africa, India and Australia. AE is the current, official graphics supplier to Rugby World Cup, all ICC cricket events, BCCI’s international and domestic cricket, including the IPL, the Ashes, the Big Bash and Europe’s premier international rugby tournament, the Natwest 6 Nations. It also has long standing working relationships with many of the world’s most eminent broadcasters including Sky, BT, BBC, ITV, Fox, SuperSport, Star TV and Channel Nine.

Sport is widely considered to be the last live TV event as many other programmes have moved to catch-up streaming services, and this makes it uniquely appealing to broadcasters and advertisers. As a result, broadcasters are competing fiercely for rights over prime sports content. Additionally they are broadening coverage in women’s sport, “lower league” exposure and new activities to fill the expanding airtime, much of which requires the support of Alston Elliot’s services to enhance the action.

Cavendish Corporate Finance, which advised the shareholders of Alston Elliot, has an extensive track record in advising companies in the sports technology sector within its media and technology practice. High-profile deals include advising on the sales of Hawk-Eye to Sony, OptaSports to Perform Group and the management buyout of Amayse.

The Cavendish team was led by Andrew Jeffs, Partner, Business Services.

Andrew Jeffs, Partner at Cavendish, commented:

“We are delighted to have advised Alston Elliot shareholders on this very successful transaction, which highlights Cavendish’s expertise in media and technology. Alston Elliot has a 25-year track record of successful delivery of broadcast graphics on live coverage of some of the world’s most high profile sporting events. It is the undisputed leader in cricket and rugby, with multi-year contracts with the rights holders for the World Cups in each sport. Inflexion Private Equity is best placed to support Alston Elliot’s team in the next chapter of the story.”

“The Arculus founders have very much enjoyed working closely with the Cavendish team throughout this process. Their understanding of the technology services and cyber security sector enabled us to showcase our business in the best possible light. Their insightful guidance was a constant and we were highly impressed with the team’s capabilities and commitment which were instrumental in delivering the outcome we wanted.”

Austin France, Co-Founder at Arculus

“We are thrilled to join Motorola Solutions and build upon their industry-leading portfolio and continue to support our customers in the most challenging of environments. I would like to express our gratitude to Anthony and the team at Cavendish who provided invaluable counsel and a streamlined process throughout.”

Paul Elsey, Managing Director at Silent Sentinel

EC’s strategic acquisition of Liad Electronics in the Netherlands represents an exciting opportunity to accelerate growth in mainland Europe. It is fantastic to have once again collaborated with the Cavendish Debt Advisory team who quickly understood the EC platform and ensured the most appropriate debt financing solution was put in place. We are delighted to be partnering with Shawbrook Bank on this acquisition and we look forward to continuing the buy and build strategy.

Guy Nieuwenhuys, Investment Manager at Rockpool

“In July 2015 we founded Pure Cremation and have grown the business to become the largest independent provider of prepaid plans in the UK. Pure is only part way through its exciting journey and, after a rigorous search process, we are delighted to have found such a strong partner in Epiris.

The Cavendish team, led by Jonathan Buxton and Ben Goldring, did a fantastic job, running a truly competitive process and managing the transaction with great skill. They were crucial in delivering this deal and its successful outcome – many thanks to the whole team.”

Bryan Powell and Catherine Powell, Co-Founders of Pure Cremation

Time is the most valuable commodity of any entrepreneur, and Zuleika and the team at finnCap have been exceptional in helping us secure today’s investment whilst enabling us to also focus time and effort on growing the business. This marks the latest milestone on our journey but it’s by no means our final destination, we are here to help people fall in love with taking the train again, and enable operators to run more profitable networks full of happier, less stressed passengers – it’s long overdue .”

Iain Griffin, Co-founder and CEO of Seatfrog

“We are absolutely delighted with the outcome of this deal and are excited to be joining DNV. This strategic decision will enable us to further accelerate our long-term growth objectives and showcase our unique LUNA technology. Karri and Harry have achieved an outstanding result for us through their wealth of sector expertise and highly commercial advice and it has been a joy working with them.”

Barry Mulholland, Founding Partner at MBI

“We engaged with finnCap Cavendish over 18 months ago to help us prepare for sale. The team’s sector specialist advice and guidance, combined with astute management of every aspect of the transaction process, delivered an exceptional deal that has surpassed all expectation, our shareholders are delighted”.

Rupert Emson, Co-founder-CEO, Vero Screening

“We’re excited to join Dialogue and to bring our digital well-being and market-leading health engagement together with their diagnosis and treatment capabilities.

I’d also like to thank to the finnCap Cavendish team for being an exceptional partner during this process. Mike and the team provided us with excellent advice and guidance throughout, working tirelessly to ensure the best outcome possible was delivered. As a founder, I couldn’t recommend them highly enough.”

Martin Blinder, co-founder & CEO, TicTrac

“This is an important milestone for our business, allowing us to focus on developing our mobile payments solutions. We believe Boku Identity will be able to continue to develop under Twilio’s ownership and we wish the business and its staff well for the future. We were impressed with the resilience and creativity of the team at finnCap Cavendish and are grateful to them for advising on the deal.”

Jon Prideaux, CEO, Boku

“This is transformational for Mail Manager. We are really excited to be joining the Ideagen family where we’re confident we’ll go from strength to strength. Good advisors are essential. Ours were great! Thank you to Anthony Platt and his team for their rock-solid guidance, support and advice.”

Stuart Rowe, CEO, MailManager