Yahoo Finance Lord Ashcroft to net £300m windfall from sale of recruitment firm
Tory donor Lord Ashcroft has landed a £300m windfall from the sale of a recruitment business he founded.
Impellam Group, which is 62pc owned by Lord Ashcroft, will be taken private by Dutch rival HeadFirst Global for £483m after the two sides struck a deal.
Lord Ashcroft, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, founded Impellam in 2008 and is chairman of the business.
Impellam specialises in recruitment for biotech companies, focusing on finding people who can fill highly specialised roles such as data scientists, scientists and clinicians. The company formerly owned Medacs Global, which supplied locum doctors to the NHS. It sold the division for £85m earlier this year.
Impellam had revenues of £1.9bn last year, generating adjusted earnings of £34.2m.
Lord Ashcroft, who announced his intention to sell the company in April 2022, said he was delighted with the deal. He hailed the “significant value” created for shareholders and said the combination of Impellam and HeadFirst would strengthen both.
Lord Ashcroft, who was made a life peer in 2000, has business interests spread across several sectors. The serial entrepreneur is a majority shareholder of Gusbourne, the English sparkling wine producer, and he owns the media company behind brands such as Conservative Home and Biteback Publishing.
The 77-year-old also owns a significant stake in data science company Jaywing.
Impellam, which has been listed on the stock market for 15 years, is based in Luton and employs around 2,000 people.
It becomes the latest company to leave the London Stock Exchange this year, following a series of private equity deals and takeovers. Others to have exited include Hotel Chocolat and energy company Smart Metering Systems.
In a complex deal, Impellam shareholders will get 557.2p in cash and loan notes worth 392.8p, which can be redeemed for cash or shares in the enlarged HeadFirst group at a later date. Shareholders will also get dividends.
The total offer is worth around two-thirds more than Impellam’s closing share price on Tuesday.
Dutch buyer Headfirst was founded in 1995. Private equity firm IceLake backed it in 2022 with additional financial firepower.
The takeover follows a lengthy courtship. The two companies first revealed they were in talks over the summer and the Takeover Panel has extended the deadline several times. Impellam chief executive Julia Robertson and chief financial officer Tim Briant are set to remain with the group and join HeadFirst’s board.
HeadFirst chairman Han Kolff said: “Together we will become a global leader in mission-critical data, tech and engineering talent enabling us to service our customers, suppliers and professionals in an unrivalled manner.”
