The management buyout of insurance defendant claims firm Plexus Law from the now defunct Parabis Group was supported by £4.2 million of debt finance from new British challenger bank OakNorth Bank, which is supported by Mambu, the all-in-one SaaS banking platform provider.
‘NewLaw’ provider Parabis Group – which was acquired in 2012 by private equity house Duke Street Capital – went into pre-pack administration at the start of this week (22 November) and is being broken up seven ways led by restructuring consultants AlixPartners.
The Plexus MBO team includes Parabis Group founders Andrew McDougall, Nick Addyman and Tim Roberts, who were enabled to go ahead with the deal thanks to funding from OakNorth, a new British bank for small and medium sized growth companies.
OakNorth Bank was founded by Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman, themselves entrepreneurs who were inspired to launch OakNorth by the challenges they faced when securing finance from high street banks. The board is chaired by former Barclays Vice Chairman Cyrus Ardalan, and includes Lord Adair Turner in the role of Senior Independent Director, and Robert Burgess as Non-Executive Director.
The bank in October announced that it has selected Mambu’s cloud-based banking system for its “speed, flexibility and security versus a traditional core banking system, allowing it to more rapidly enter, and better meet the needs of, the growing small and medium sized lending market in the UK.”
OakNorth offers loans secured against a range of assets including stock, debtor books, plants and machinery, as well as unsecured loans, which are better suited to many high-growth businesses.
Under the Plexus Law MBO, which closed yesterday (24 November), the new entity will take on the firms’ contracts and safeguard the jobs of over 900 employees.
Andrew McDougall becomes CEO of Plexus Law, Nick Addyman becomes Consumer Director, and Tim Roberts becomes Commercial Director.
McDougall said: “We had a unique opportunity to acquire Plexus Law, but needed to move fast. After approaching OakNorth, we were impressed with how quickly they got up to speed and gave a funding commitment, which allowed us to proceed with the transaction. Given the nature of the deal, OakNorth remained flexible and adapted the funding solution to our changing needs. We’re excited by the opportunity to grow Plexus Law, and OakNorth have enabled our first step.”