Southampton: RBS and Paris Smith in funding deal

A team of Southampton advisors has played a key role in a £10m fundraising deal for a south coast company.

Paris Smith & Randall LLP acted for the city’s The Royal Bank of Scotland’s corporate and structured finance team, led by Mark Ward and Tania Mandall of RBS, which provided nearly £4.4m worth of debt finance to Applied Kilovolts.

Worthing-based Applied Kilovolts, which has 75 staff and specialises in high voltage power supplies for the X-ray-to-electron gun scientific instrument market, was advised by Shoosmiths.

The deal involved the acquisition of Applied Kilovolts Holdings Limited’s (AKHL) shares by a newly formed holding company and, at the same time, repaying existing loan notes owed to the sellers of its subsidiary, Applied Kilovolts Limited (AKL). AKL was bought by AKHL in 2003.

RBS’s money was also used to buy the Brandenburg division of Astec Europe. Brandenburg, based at Dudley in the West Midlands, is a leading manufacturer of high voltage power supplies, while North American parent Astec is a world leader in power conversion equipment.

Applied Kilovolts’s Managing Director, Kevin Wheelhouse, said: “The

acquisition of Brandenburg is key to our growth strategy and I am grateful to Mark Ward and the team at RBS for putting the financial solution in place and the legal support from Paris Smith & Randall.

“Brandenburg’s strength is in technologies that allow fast switching in its power supply products and we recognise the integration of this technology across the Applied Kilovolts suite of products as a significant opportunity.”

James McNeil headed up the Paris Smith & Randall team, which included Andrew Heathcock and Richard Atcherley.