UK consolidator RSM Tenon has acquired
substantial assets of Vantis after the firm announced it was
entering administration.

Vantis, an Alternative Investment
Market-listed accounting business and member of HLB International,
went into administration on 29 June due to its inability to reduce
its spiralling debt.

The RSM Tenon acquisition is worth £6.8m
($10.2m) and includes Vantis’s London, Epsom, and Leicester
advisory offices, the national financial management operations and
the Thames Valley recovery office.

RSM Tenon said 300 Vantis staff will join its
existing teams, adding up to an estimated £27 million to the firm’s
annual fee income.

RSM Tenon will make an initial payment of
£5.7m in cash on completion and deferred payment of up to £1.1m
payable in cash subject to, and upon, the realisation of certain
debtors purchased as part of the acquisition.

The directors of RSM Tenon said they
anticipate that after adjusting for integration costs, the acquired
assets will increase their earnings in the first full year of RSM
Tenon’s ownership.

The integration could take up to six months to
complete.

A good deal

The deal will provide a significant amount of
extra audit, tax and advisory work across the three locations,
especially to RSM Tenon’s London arm.

Vantis’s Thames Valley recovery business
offers restructuring, turnaround and insolvency services to
mid-sized corporate businesses and the acquisition will help
increase RSM Tenon’s market share in what it sees as an important
area.

The acquisition of the financial management
operation will push RSM Tenon’s current financial management
division into the top 20 nationally, with more than 300 staff
operating from offices across the UK, RSM Tenon said.

RSM Tenon group chief executive Andy Raynor
said joining Vantis’s operations with RSM Tenon’s would create “a
seamless fit”.

“We have always admired the underlying
businesses within Vantis, continuing to deliver outstanding client
service to entrepreneurs despite the difficulties of the holding
company. The resilience and skill of the people joining our teams
is reflected in their loyal client following,” Raynor added.

The acquisition is the second major recent
integration for the group after Tenon and RSM Bentley Jennison
merged in December 2009 to create RSM Tenon with annual fee income
of £250m and 3,000 staff.

“With acquisitions in the last six months
totalling almost £100m of potential revenue, RSM Tenon has
demonstrated the ambition for growth that we have always encouraged
in our clients,” Raynor said.

“Our ability to act quickly in completing this
advantageous transaction has been aided by the continuing
successful integration of our earlier RSM Bentley Jennison
acquisition. Processes created and tested in that merger will be
activated immediately by our dedicated teams.”

 

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