Status:

Realised

Commitment:

£20m

Date of investment / realisation:

2021 / 2024

Sector:

Business Services

Buy & Build:

11 Completed Acquisitions 

“We enjoyed a shared vision with Horizon and their support has enabled us to expand the solutions we offer to our clients, grow the team and create significant value for all stakeholders. Horizon’s understanding of our sector and the opportunity in front of us was clearly evident from our first meeting and has helped us in so many ways to build the group we are today. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Horizon Capital team for their unwavering support over the past three years.”

Richard McNeillyManaging Partner, Dains Accountants

Background

Dains provides essential services to 4,000 fast-growth businesses, international companies and high net worth individuals helping clients achieve their goals through award-winning audit, tax and business advisory and support services. The market that Dains operates in is highly fragmented and sized at £4.5bn and driven by strong tailwinds due to increasing levels of compliance and sophistication, as a result of which a growing proportion of clients are outsourcing business-enhancing tasks to expert providers

Horizon Capital have worked closely with the team to build upon a strategy of both organic and inorganic growth, supporting the identification and origination of M&A opportunities, execution support and capital for consolidation.

The Journey

Since completion Horizon Capital worked with the team to further invest and build out the senior team, infrastructure, and capabilities of the Group. Alongside this, Horizon supported Dains to close 11 acquisitions bringing scale, capability, and geographical reach to the group.

Buy and Build

Horizon Capital had been mapping the SME accountancy and compliance market for a number of years and therefore have been able to leverage this sector knowledge to benefit Dains, building a strong pipeline of accretive acquisition targets.

Realisation

Working with Horizon, Dains was able to accelerate its organic growth to double the market growth rate whilst also closing 11 highly accretive acquisitions enhancing the service proposition to clients. Revenues grew from £15m per annum to over £80m, with employee growth from ~200 to over 750 staff. The business was sold to IK Partners delivering a return of 8x MOIC and an IRR of 107%.

News & Insights

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