Grant Thornton wins Accountancy Firm of the Year at M&A Awards and HealthInvestor

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories: Financing | Tags: finance, awards, M&A, AIM, corporate finance, Simon Davies, Stephen Baker, Healthcare, Takeover Code, Rutland Partners, AMTECH, Housing 21, Geoff Davies, Primary Capital, CeDo, Katie Derham

Grant Thornton has added two more awards to its growing trophy cabinet: Accountancy Firm of the Year at the M&A Awards on 20 May 2010 and Accountant of the Year at the HealthInvestor Awards ceremony on 27 May 2010.

The M&A Awards celebrate the achievements of management teams, advisers and financiers who have surmounted extraordinary market conditions to demonstrate their dealmaking excellence.

Geoff Davies, Partner and Head of Corporate Finance commented: “The award is recognition of a consistent delivery of deal completions, both in volume and quality. This sets us apart from many of our competitors and demonstrates our continuing commitment to be the leading M&A advisory firm to the UK mid-corporate market.”

Grant Thornton’s Simon Davies (pictured collecting the award from event host TV newsreader Katie Derham and Harry Gill, Head of Europe, at award sponsor Ansarada) was nominated as Dealmaker of the Year.

Two transactions on which our teams advised were also short listed for Buy-out of the Year: the sale of software provider AMTECH Group to Primary Capital for £35m and the acquisition of CeDo, one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of household disposables, by Rutland Partners with CeDo announced as the winner.

HealthInvestor Accountant of the Year
And for the second year running, at the HealthInvestor Awards, Grant Thornton has won HealthInvestor Accountant of the Year. The award was made in recognition of the innovative and high-quality work that the firm delivered across a breadth of services, which span all parts of the healthcare sector. In particular, the judges highlighted our creativity on the Housing 21 deal. 

Stephen Baker heads up the Corporate Finance Advisory team in London and led the team who advised Housing 21. “This was the first time a not-for-profit organisation has launched a full takeover of a publicly quoted company in the UK. The transaction posed the unique challenge of balancing the objectives and philosophies of a social enterprise with the requirements of a corporate transaction under the Takeover Code. Ultimately, though, this is a great opportunity for Housing 21 to take a significant step forward in their strategic plan so our job was to make it happen for them.”

Further evidence of our success is reflected in Grant Thornton UK LLP being ranked as the leading accountancy firm for volume of deals for Q1 2010, according to Thomson Reuters. The team also boasts three Dealmakers of the Year (to date) as awarded by Insider Magazine to Rupert Rawcliffe and The Business Magazine to Simon Davies and Duncan Lamb.

Read more on Grant Thornton awards:
* Large Six Auditor of the Year - Grant Thornton declared Large Six Auditor of the Year at the FD’s Excellence Awards

* Grant Thornton Wins ‘Best Tax Investigation Team’ Award at the Prestigious Industry LexisNexis Taxation Awards Ceremony

* AIM Accountant of the Year - Grant Thornton wins AIM Accountant of the Year at Growth Company Awards

* Grant Thornton announced as the number one corporate finance adviser to the UK TV Production industry in new report by Content Economics Research.