Corporate finance advisory firm Dartmouth buys recruiter Pure

03 October 2019 Consultancy.uk

Dartmouth Partners has completed the purchase of Pure, a consultancy specialising in tax, legal, risk & compliance. With funding from Dartmouth, which is backed by private equity firm Literacy Capital, Pure hopes to accelerate its growth ambitions in the coming year.

Founded in 2012 by Logan Naidu, Dartmouth has built itself a reputation in the financial and legal sectors, becoming the chosen advisor to over 300 firms in the process. Specialising in corporate finance, investment banking, private equity and wealth management Dartmouth has spent the last year expanding its presence in permanent and interim roles, while also launching in legal and distribution. As a result of increased investment, Dartmouth has grown more than 30% year-on-year despite broader political uncertainty.

Dartmouth Partners has looked to maintain this momentum with a deal for professional services firm Pure, backed by Literacy Capital. Literacy Capital invested in Dartmouth in June 2018, to support the expansion of its proposition and footprint, despite on-going economic and Brexit uncertainty.

Corporate finance advisory firm Dartmouth buys recruiter Pure

Dartmouth’s CEO and founder, Logan Naidu, commented, “This is a very exciting development for the business and will help ensure that we maintain our pole positions within the specialist sectors that we operate in. Dartmouth and Pure complement one another well and with this partnership, we’ll be able to invest in growing both brands further. With this transaction, time was of the essence which is why we once again went to Deepesh and the team at OakNorth as we knew they’d be able to work with us to get the deal done in the time frame we needed it.”

Naidu will become CEO of the new group and is said to be looking for more search firm acquisitions. The purchase of Pure is aimed at tapping into Pure’s network to have the right talent come in and boost operations. Pure will meanwhile hope that it can grow at a faster rate with the funding that its becoming part of Dartmouth will bring.

Pure focuses on sectors including tax, legal, risk and compliance, and has been led by Chris Nelson and Charles Ferguson for the past 20 years. It holds offices in London, New York, Berlin, Hong Kong and Singapore, with the shareholders looking at how best to maximise the potential of the business in the future. The deal was financed with a loan from OakNorth Bank. Lee Federman at Jones Day assisted OakNorth on the transaction.

Deepesh Thakrar, Senior Debt Finance Director at OakNorth, stated, “Despite ongoing economic and political uncertainty, the UK recruitment industry has continued to grow, increasing by 11 percent in 2017-18. Dartmouth Partners has excelled over its peers with 30 percent year-on-year growth, so they are in a very strong position to take advantage of this exciting business opportunity. We were delighted to once again work with both Dartmouth Partners and Literacy Capital, as well as Lee Federman at Jones Day, all of whom worked tirelessly to get the deal done on time.”