Timber!! - Corporate Finance Cuts Major Deal

Springfords Corporate Finance team are delighted to have advised the UK's largest saw mill group, BSW Timber Ltd in their recent acquisition of Dalbeattie based saw miller Howie Group Ltd. The transaction creates an enlarged group with six UK sites and projected aggregated turnover of over £110m.  Bank debt funding for the transaction was provided by the Royal Bank of Scotland, bankers to BSW for many years.

The transaction represents one of the largest deals that the Springfords CF team has advised upon, and provides a template for further advice to the enlarged group as they consider expansion within traditional saw milling, as well as the development of strategies within the renewable energy/biomass arena.

Howard Jones, Finance Director of BSW Timber said:

"As a management team, we at BSW formed an excellent relationship with the team at Springfords in large part due to the hard work and dedication shown across the team. I believe, having worked with Springfords that we ended up getting both a higher level of input and an appreciably keener cost than we would have had from the other large firms we spoke to about this piece of work, as they always provided timely, insightful advice within what was at times a testing process. Having not previously worked with the Springfords team in the past, I would strongly recommend them to others, and look forward to working with them in the future. To quote my initial feedback to the team, they are small enough to care whilst large enough to cope."

Harry Linklater from the Springfords Corporate Finance team said "We are delighted to have worked closely with an industry leading business such as BSW in securing Howie Group. We are excited by the ongoing opportunities within the BSW business, and have already sought to introduce related clients and contacts to them with the potential for ongoing work going each way. The Howie transaction encompassed many of the challenges of executing deals in the current economic cycle, however it is also worth noting that bank debt also remains available for well managed companies undertaking strategic and well planned acquisitions such as this. We are sure that the short and long term interests of BSW will be well served by the adoption of the UK's largest single site saw mill at Dalbeattie. Springfords was delighted to act for BSW, and are delighted to have been engaged on a retained basis to assist BSW as they their business develops."

To discuss any business acquisition, sale or general advisory needs, whether large or small and for us to explain how we may be able to help you too, then please feel free to call Andrew Ewing, Harry Linklater or others in the corporate advisory team on 0131 440 5000.