THE DEAL:
The acquisition of Deluxe Catering by Niche & Bespoke funded by new facilities provided by HSBC UK. Midlands-based luxury aviation caterer Niche & Bespoke has expanded into Southern England through the landmark acquisition of Deluxe. The deal marks a major milestone for Niche & Bespoke, enabling it to extend its premium in-flight catering services to airports in the south of England from Deluxe’s catering facilities in Andover and at Stansted Airport, complementing its existing operations at Birmingham Airport. The funding will also support improvements in logistics and operational efficiency while further increasing production capacity as it becomes one of the largest independent luxury aviation catering groups in the UK.
OUR ROLE:
Through our private equity relationships we identified Deluxe, a portfolio company of Alcuin Capital Partners, as being a good fit with Niche & Bespoke and introduced the acquisition idea to Dan Robinson, Niche & Bespoke’s founder and CEO. The combination would more than double the size of our client and so a detailed modelling exercise was undertaken to asses the debt service capacity of the combined group allowing for investment in Deluxe’s kitchen and ground-handling assets. We negotiated Heads of Agreement with Alcuin while running a competitive funding process across leveraged finance and mezzanine funding options. This required positioning Niche & Bespoke’s strategy, supported by detailed and robust financial metrics and the negotiated acquisition terms, to obtain competing funding offers. The due diligence process was scoped and commissioned prior to selecting a funder, with the most appropriate structure emerging as we navigated the detail of the acquisition process and only then was the funder mandated. The result was an A and B cash flow loan structure with minimal covenants part supported by the Government Guarantee Scheme.
WHAT OUR CLIENT SAID:
‘We are delighted with the support that Cattaneo provided to us on the transaction. After bringing us the original idea we worked closely with them to develop the proposition into one that fitted our requirements perfectly, both in terms of the acquisition structure and the funding package. The Cattaneo team really understood our business and industry and were able to position the proposition such that we had more than one funding option with sufficient headroom to allow for our planned growth. I couldn’t recommend Cattaneo highly enough.’
Dan Robinson, Chief Executive Officer, Niche & Bespoke
