Plexus secures £15m investment

Insurance firm Plexus obtained an ABS licence from the SRA in order to the accept the investment.

 

Origin Equity professional services focused private equity firm, specialising in business transformation and makes just one or two investments per year.

 

As part of the deal, Origin partners Gavin Loughrey and Olivia Roberts will join the Plexus Board, while the firm’s existing management maintains overall control of its running. 

 

The cash injection will be invested into ongoing work on the firm’s data management, analytics and next generation case management processing.

 

The deal follows closely after the appointment of former Kennedy’s finance director Fiona Scott as CEO in December.

 

She was one of a number of high-level appointments at Plexus in recent months, having been joined by new senior partner Andrew McDougall and commercial director Tim Roberts.

 

This is the second time Plexus has attempted private equity investment. It was a large component of the PE-backed Parabis until 2015 when the firm was split into seven parts and sold as pre-pack.

 

Plexus returned to its original ownership at that time and has since been building up its reinsurer client base, litigation and professional indemnity practices.

 

Plexus is headquartered in Leeds and has offices in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Evesham. It is in the process of recruiting for new offices in Chelmsford and Taunton.

 

The firm currently has 119 partners and 655 fee earners. It reported £6m of profit after payments to partners on £56m of revenues for the year ending 31 March 2018.

 

Commenting on the investment, Scott said: “Origin’s investment will accelerate our organic growth across the UK and Ireland, support our efforts to secure talent through lateral hires and enable us to further explore how we utilise and invest in technology. 

 

She said the firm selected private equity investment over a merger, IPO or taking on debt, because it was not to compromise management control.

 

“In addition, the fact that it is a cash equity purchase ensures that it does not expose the business and its partners to the risk that a highly leveraged, debt funded buy in or IPO might – particularly in the current economic and political climate. It’s also important for us to ensure that we don’t preclude future talent from taking a stake in the business”, she added.