Tombola acquired
Sunderland online gambling firm Tombola was sold to Flutter - the owners of Paddy Power and Betfair - in a deal worth £402m.
Flutter is paying £402m in cash for Tombola, which employs more than 700 people in Sunderland and Gibraltar and is known for its sponsorship of the ITV programme I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.
Flutter Entertainment expects the deal to be completed early next year, subject to approval from competition authorities and said that it was “100%” committed to retaining Tombola as a Wearside business.
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Hirestreet investment
Newcastle based Hirestreet is help Marks and Spencer launch its first clothing rental service after receiving investment from the retail giant.
Hirestreet, which is run by former Young Business Person of the Year Isabella West, purposely sets itself against the ‘fast fashion’ trend that sees customers buy clothes and discard them before moving on to buy new items.
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A pioneer of the clothing rental sector, the company secured investment from Marks and Spencer’s Founders Factory, which invests in start-ups and emerging businesses, particularly in the technology sector. In what Ms West describes as a “massive” deal for her company and the rental sector, M&S will use Hirestreet’s Zoa technology to trial the rental of clothing for customers who want to both spend less on clothing and reduce waste.
Investment in END
Newcastle clothing retailer END sold a majority stake to the Carlyle Group in a deal reported to value the business at more than £750m.
The company, which recently opened a second city centre store within the former Byron restaurant building, is best known for the queues outside its store ahead of the sale of limited-edition designer trainers.
As one of the region’s most hotly-tipped companies, having won inclusion on a number of national league tables for fast growing businesses in recent years, it is also gaining traction internationally through its online operation. In October END also secured a catwalk coup by enlisting former Gucci CEO Patrizio di Marco as its new chairman.
New green firm
Californian firm Turntide Technologies – which is backed by the likes of Bill Gates, actor Robert Downey Jr and Amazon – acquired three North East businesses and brought them together with the aim of being a major driver of the electric vehicle revolution.
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The firm worked with electric vehicle expert Matt Boyle to set up a transportation division that announced deals to buy BorgWarner Gateshead and Sunderland’s Hyperdrive Innovation, and then Cramlington-based Avid Technology, a leading designer of power electronics and motors.
Bringing the three companies together forms part of plans to create a North East business that can be at the centre of switching vehicles in the freight, rail, marine and aerospace sectors to electric power.
Stock Market launches
Kitwave, a wholesale retail group based in North Shields, launched on the AIM exchange in May, successfully raising £64m. Based on the placing price, Kitwave’s market capitalisation is approximately £105m.
Kitwave was founded in 1987 following the acquisition of a single confectionery wholesale business in North Shields, but the company has grown substantially over the years. Since 2011 the business has acquired 10 wholesale distributors.
A few months later in November, radiator manufacturer and distruibutor Stelrad launched onto the main market. The Newcastle-based firm’s flotation valued the company at nearly £275m.
Big year for life sciences
The North East’s life sciences sector had a strong year, with several sizeable investments and acquisitions.
Alnwick-based Arcinova was taken over by Nottingham firm Quotient Sciences, a drug development and manufacturing accelerator, in an undisclosed deal in February, and has since announced job creation and expansion at the Northumberland base.
May saw Immunodiagnostic Systems (IDS), which is based in Boldon, South Tyneside, agree a $155m takeover deal with American life sciences company PerkinElmer, to accelerate its growth.
Meanwhile, QuantuMDx Group, which has laboratories and offices near Newcastle Quayside, secured £15m equity investment from Vita Spring IVD Fund, a Hong Kong-based venture capital firm
In June Iksuda Therapeutics announced a $47m investment into the company, which directors hailed as transformational. The Newcastle Helix-based business completed the financing round, worth around £34m, co-led by Mirae Asset Capital and its subsidiaries, South Korean drug developer Celltrion and Premier Partners.
True Potential deal
Newcastle-based True Potential – one of the region’s fastest growing technology companies - sold a majority stake to international private equity firm Cinven in September
The firm, founded in 2007, said the undisclosed deal would allow it to continue its double-digit growth in the financial services sector. It already employs around 350 people from its offices in Newburn, which last month unveiled the results of a £1.5m office transformation to create a new base fit for post-Covid working.
The company, which operates in wealth management, providing advice, investment platform and fund solutions to more than 1.4m retail clients, was named Business of the Year at the European Business Awards in 2017 while founder David Harrison took the prize for Tyneside and Northumberland Business Executive of the Year the same year.
Bottlepay
Payment company Bottlepay, which was set up by Partnerize co-founder Pete Cheyne, secured £11m in a seed funding round early in the year in a deal that valued it at around £50m.
The company, which aims to revolutionise payment systems by helping people to make small digital payments to businesses in an economic way, was later acquired by one of the investors from that round - US bitcoin company NYDIG - in a shares deal reported to be worth up to $300m.
Wind power deal
Northumberland engineering company Osbit was acquired to help found a new group looking to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in the wind power sector.
Sheffield company Venterra snapped up Osbit, an offshore engineering specialist, and new jobs were pledged at the firm’s Riding Mill and Blyth sites as a result.
Osbit employs more than 120 people after major growth in recent years, and said the October acquisition will lead to an “accelerated growth campaign to significantly expand its workforce in North East England, with a range of highly skilled positions.”
Workwear Express sold
County Durham workwear company Workwear Express - that started life with little more than a van and a sewing machine - was sold to distribution and outsourcing giant Bunzl in a deal believed to be worth around £50m.
Founder and outgoing chairman Andrew Ward was 18 when he first launched the company, following his father into the workwear business after helping to sell work clothes and boots out of the back of his van from the age of 10.
It now employs more than 280 people, supplying bespoke workwear, promotional clothing and PPE to all sectors around the globe, including healthcare, industrial and hospitality, with clients including Greggs and Tesco.
Backing for VBites
Hundreds of North East jobs are set to be created at Heather Mills’ plant-based business VBites following multimillion-pound investment from German food giant Pfeifer & Langen Industrie und Handels KG.
The firm snapped up a 25.1% minority stake in the business earlier this month for an undisclosed sum, with the money set to be used to help Ms Mills’ reopen and scale-up at the Peterlee factory, following a pause during the pandemic.
Ms Mills bought the former Walker Crisps factory in 2018, but her plans were halted by the pandemic. She said the new partnership will be transformational for the plant-based food sector, putting proposals for growth back on schedule, while also creating around 320 jobs in the next 18 months.