Highbury Support Services Limited

Price Bailey’s Strategic Corporate Finance (SCF) team recently advised Highbury Support Services Limited (Highbury), a supported living and domiciliary care business, on their sale to Birch Faraday Capital, the financial backers and owners of Mediline Supported Living.

Highbury Support Services is a family company, based in Wales, with over 25 years’ experience specialising in enabling individuals with identified support needs to live their lives as independently as possible. The Company focusses on supporting adults with mental health needs, learning & physical disabilities within their own homes, wider community or at the Company’s Day Service Centre. Recent growth in the services provided has resulted in over 2,500 hours of support being provided each week by over 90 employed staff, providing an individualised and tailored service to each service user under the Company’s care.

The SCF team were introduced to the Company to explore a potential sale, with the vendors seeking an exit to a buyer with the capability and enthusiasm to continue to grow the business and provide the quality of care synonymous with the Company’s history. Following their acquisition of Mediline Supported Living in 2023, Birch Faraday Capital saw Highbury as a complementary fit to their existing operations and were a well-placed acquirer to continue the growth of the business.

The vendors had been through an aborted sale process with another advisor/broker before approaching Price Bailey. The team supported them in disengaging the previous adviser and then identified a number of other potential acquirers who had not been approached as part of the previous process. The thorough buyer research and marketing activities resulted in us receiving a handful of offers to compare and contrast, and following some negotiations, we helped the vendors to select Birch Faraday as the preferred bidder.

During the sale process, a number of issues were identified in respect of the Company’s historic compliance reporting which had to be closely examined in order to reach final agreement with the Buyer, involving additional technical support from our tax consulting colleagues.

The transaction was led and managed by Stephen Reed, Seb Humberston and James White through marketing, buyer selection, due diligence and legal contract negotiations through to completion. Alex Saunders and Jack Horwitz of Leathes Prior Solicitors, were legal advisors to the vendors.

We will continue to support the vendors through the subsequent process of agreeing the completion accounts in the weeks following the completion of the transaction as part of the final true-up arrangements.