By Founder, Shawn Bone and the Cavu team.
On a family trip to NYC, I heard the word Cavu for the first time – the meaning being ceiling and visibility unlimited. Used by the Navy and Airforce to denote unrestricted horizons. At the time I thought little of the term but it did resonate – never to be limited by anything and never to impose a ceiling on what is possible.
Years later, it was the obvious choice for my business. Cavu embodied everything I would like the business to be – being ambitious, unrestricted, never to limit what is possible for clients. And so the idea of unrestricted horizons, of endless possibilities was born.
Now you give the idea to a graphic designer and she embodied that with the infinity sign in our logo to always remind us of what Cavu stands for and we hope over the last 10 years we have shown that level of ambition to our clients – never limiting what is possible in a deal, always securing the best terms and thinking outside the box to deliver outstanding results for clients.
Underpinning this are our core fundamentals – integrity, independence, quality and excellence. I would hope our clients recognise these things in the way Cavu delivers for them.
August 2023 marked the 10 year anniversary of Cavu Corporate Finance
Cavu was the first corporate finance boutique in the North East, and was established to provide high quality, independent and specialist corporate finance advice to clients.
Cavu was established by Shawn Bone, a veteran of the North East dealmaking market after identifying a gap in the market for an independent boutique focusing on representing ambitious, high quality businesses of all sizes, providing excellent client service exceeding anything in the market.
Important to Cavu is advising on a breadth of transactions and always delivering the same high quality service. Over the last decade, we are proud to have stayed true to our original purpose having advised a number of the region’s most high profile businesses, ranging from small and rapidly growing companies to businesses employing thousands of people.
The breadth of transactions that we have advised on over the last decade is a testament to our skills and expertise across a variety of situations, including raising growth capital for businesses, advising shareholders on private equity investment, advising shareholders on strategic sales and advising businesses on acquisitions.
Cavu has significant private equity expertise. Over the 10 years, Cavu has been firmly established as the region’s clear leader in advising on private equity transactions, combining technical skills required for these transactions with an unparalleled network of private equity funds across the UK market. Across all of our transactions, we have successfully helped regional companies raise hundreds of millions of investment working with some of the region’s most successful companies.
A key theme for Cavu over the last 10 years has been to focus on exceptional client service which has seen us advising clients across a range of sectors and deal types, a select few are noted below:
J&B Recycling. J&B provides recycling services in the waste market and was our first major client. We initially advised J&B on raising £7.5m of equity from BGF in 2014 and continued working with the business over several years, culminating in the sale of the business to Spanish trade buyer Urbaser (2021).
Fairstone, which is a financial services platform. Cavu was retained to raise £25m of equity to start a buy and build strategy which has led to rapid growth. We successfully concluded the equity raise with mid market PE house, Synova Capital in 2016.
United Living (previously Fastflow), which provides maintenance services to the critical infrastructure and housing sectors. We initially advised the shareholders of Fastflow on a substantial private equity transaction with Elysian Capital in 2017. We have subsequently advised Fastflow on three strategic acquisitions, including the acquisition of Partner Group (2018), United Living (2019) and GBC (2021) and are proud of our role in helping to grow the business to over £600m turnover.
Pacifica. We initially advised the shareholders of Pacifica on a private equity transaction with Synova Capital in 2019. We subsequently advised Pacifica and Synova on the sale of a division of the business (Pacifica Home Services) to German corporate Viessmann (2021).
Over the years we have worked with numerous clients, there are too many to name but examples include Infinity Works (investment by Growth Capital Partners), Notify (investment by Calculus), Kykloud (sale to US trade buyer, Accruent), TRS (sale to Biffa), Wheelbase (sale to JD Sports plc), Connect Healthcare (advised LDC on investment and on the subsequent acquisition of PMS), Hicomply (investment by BGF), Bloom Procurement (advised BGF on investment), Ladhar Group (acquisition of Sir John Fitzgerald) and Vernacare (advised HIG on initial investment and on subsequent acquisition of Sharpsafe), to name a few.
Cavu has continued to grow year on year and despite the global economic conditions over the last twelve months, we are delighted to have had another great year advising excellent businesses both in the region and nationally. Key transactions in the last twelve months include:
The sale of Intelligence Fusion to US corporate Sigma7, which is backed by US PE house, Growth Catalyst Partners.
The management buyout of Mallcomm, backed by Synova Capital.
A significant private equity investment in scarlettabbott funded by LDC.
The sale of Simpson and Parsons to Jensten Group, which is backed by Livingbridge
The sale of Panelbase to Norstat, a Norwegian corporate backed by global private equity investor Triton Partners
The sale of a regional healthcare company to a private equity-backed consolidator.
As we embark on our second decade, our team is now made up of six team members and we are keen to continue investing into the region to attract top talent to Cavu as we continue to grow our own business as well as those of our clients.
We will always continue to stay true to our passion of providing market-leading, independent corporate finance advice to our clients and we look forward to working with our existing clients, old and new, as we continue our journey over the next 10 years.
Cavu – delivering excellence for clients!
www.cavucf.com