Alvarez & Marsal completes next step of Tricorn Group restructuring
Having been called in the summer of last year, Alvarez & Marsal has completed the next step of Tricorn Group’s international restructuring plan.
Established more than 35 years ago, AIM-listed Tricorn Group is a pipe manufacturer with operations in the UK, US and China. The group supplies its products to players in the energy and transporation sectors.
Due to the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the business and its customers globally, as well as cost pressures and supply chain issues, Tricorn Group last year started facing cash pressures. In both 2021 and 2020 the group had booked a loss, and the outlook for improvement was not bright.
To help turn the tide, consultants from Alvarez & Marsal were brought in to support a restructuring plan – helping the business rapidly improve its working capital position in order to remain in business, while working on plans focused on safeguarding its longer term financial health.
Meanwhile, a strategic review process (launched in parallel to the restructuring plan) concluded that “it would be in the best interests of stakeholders to pursue a sale of the company,” said Chairman Andrew Moss in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
Alvarez & Marsal were subsequently also engaged to lead a sales process which marketed the group as a whole or as individual operations in the UK, US and China.
Weeks after Tricorn Group was put on the market, the UK business was sold to Lander Aerospace, which is a subsidiary of Lander Automotive. Birmingham-based Lander Automotive specialises in fluid and air transfer systems, welded structures, interior trim products and plastic tubular assemblies.
The deal preserved 200 jobs and two factories in Malvern and West Bromwich.
Fast forward seven months, and last week Alvarez & Marsal completed the next step in the sale process, with the divestment of the US business. Again, Lander was the buyer, this time acquiring the subsidiary in a pre-pack deal. The deal preserves over 100 jobs in the United States.
Commenting on the deal, Mark Firmin and Mike Denny, managing directors at Alvarez & Marsal and joint administrators to the Tricorn Group, said: “We are pleased to have secured a future for the US business through a going concern sale to a strategic buyer, which preserves jobs and provides a platform for growth under new ownership.”
In the coming period, Firmin and Denny will continue to work on the final phase of the dismantling process, the sale of the assets of the Chinese business.
