23.04.15
Sovereign wins Deal of the Year
Sovereign Capital, the UK private equity Buy & Build specialist, is delighted to announce that it has won the ‘UK Small Deal of the Year’ category at the Private Equity Awards 2015 for its investment in Cordium, a leading global compliance and regulatory services provider. Sovereign beat six other finalists to win the category.
News
Sovereign invested in Cordium in 2010, recognising the strong and growing demand for high-quality compliance and regulatory advice. At investment the management team was augmented with the appointments of Michel van Leeuwen as Group CEO and Tony Solway as Non-Executive Chairman. Over the next four years Cordium and Sovereign worked in partnership to complete eight strategic acquisitions. In addition, Cordium expanded into Asia in response to strong customer demand, achieved strong organic growth, broadened its service offering to include Accounting and Tax and became known for its innovative web-based software solutions.
At exit Cordium had become one of the largest independent regulatory compliance consultancies in the world, with four times as many clients as at the time of Sovereign’s investment. The exit delivered a return in excess of 4x to investors.
We are delighted that Cordium has been recognised with this award. Working in partnership with Sovereign, Cordium’s management team transformed the business from a small UK centric consultancy into a large global provider, while simultaneously enhancing its service offering. Our investment executives and Cordium’s management team displayed unwavering focus and diligence throughout the investment, resulting in a tremendous outcome at exit.
Andrew Hayden, Sovereign Managing Partner
Sovereign truly understood Cordium and our market and from the outset we operated as a team, working alongside each other towards a shared vision. Their research into potential acquisitions was incredibly valuable and throughout the investment Sovereign was open-minded; they had the appetite to look at new opportunities, no matter how big or how much work was involved.
Michel van Leeuwen, Group Chief Executive of Cordium
