AHV did an excellent job in identifying potential acquirers for UK Explorer and in translating the interest shown into a very good deal for shareholders. Andrew worked closely with the UK Explorer team and their professional advisors and his skills and experience were invaluable throughout the whole process.
Fritz Ternofsky, UK Explorer Ltd.
Chairman and Investor
Case studies
A small selection of the successful transactions we have carried out on behalf of our clients are presented below. You will see that AHV has the experience and expertise to get the best deal for our clients. In particular, we pride ourselves on our ability and willingness to build lasting relationships which allows us to assist our clients in all aspects of their development.
First-time entrepreneurs, Richard Stubbs and Martin Hickman, aided by chairman Fritz Ternofsky, chose AHV to sell the public internet access business they had been building for 6 years.
UK Explorer was a pioneer in the public internet access market having started trading in early 1998. Since 2000 the market had developed rapidly and UK Explorer responded to this increase in demand by integrating WiFi into their product offering. This helped the company grow its network to over 550 terminals and hotspots in over 300 locations in the UK by the end of June 2004. At that time the company’s order book was strong with 200 terminals and hotspots in 65 locations scheduled for installation by October of that year. It had also been successful in securing many blue chip customers along the way, including Accor Hotels, Choice Hotels, BAA, Travelex and many key hotels and airports in the UK.
The owners of UK Explorer felt that the time was right to achieve the best value from the sale of their business with restructuring within the sector virtually complete and companies looking to expand. AHV was hired by Richard Stubbs (UK Explorer’s Managing Director) to advise on the sale due to their success at helping to sell Dutch public Internet access solutions provider, MyCall Holding NV.
While preparing the information memorandum and management presentation for UK Explorer, AHV conducted a thorough search of the market using its proprietary databases to identify a number of possible acquirers of the company. After discussing each of these companies with UK Explorer’s management team a shortlist of 20 names were chosen that had the best likelihood of success.
Once further discussions were held with interested parties, AHV invited three short-listed companies to carry out due diligence (which AHV co-ordinated). Once Spectrum Interactive’s bid was accepted, the deal took less than two months to complete.
The completion of the deal was also good news for the Capital Fund, a £50 million venture capital fund that backs fast growing companies in London, which had been an early investor in UK Explorer.
