International law firm Womble Bond Dickinson (WBD) has advised the shareholders of EnAppSys, a data and analytics provider, on its acquisition by The Riverside Company, a global private equity investor focused on the middle market.
EnAppSys currently serves B2B clients across the energy sector, including traders, suppliers, generators, infrastructure businesses and the public sector, with a blue-chip customer base across 12 countries in Europe, plus the USA and UAE, and is the market leader in Great Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands.
The investment is an add-on to Riverside’s Montel AS platform, a Norwegian provider of energy and electricity market information (Montel). The partnership will allow the combined group to service Pan-European markets with a more complete product offering. As part of the investment the existing management team, led by Paul Verrill and Phil Hewitt, will continue to run the operation of the EnAppSys business and will invest into shares in Montel's group structure.
The WBD team leading on the transaction for the EnAppSys shareholders was led by partner Simon Watts and managing associate David Ridley, both from the firm's corporate finance team in Newcastle, with support from Bristol-based managing associate Alex Fergus, corporate tax partner Jeremy Smith, and solicitor Bede Finnigan, who are also based in Newcastle.
Commenting on the deal, EnAppSys director Paul Verrill said:
"We are excited to be partnering with Montel and Riverside for the next phase of our growth. EnAppSys has always had the privilege of working with customers who are at the cutting edge of new flexibility markets, renewable technologies and trading approaches, and joining forces with Montel will enable us to deepen those relationships in our core markets and bring our experience in intermittent renewable dominated markets, data services and insights across the 30+ markets in Europe.
The team at Womble Bond Dickinson provided exceptional Private Equity and cross border transactional expertise, which gave us confidence that we were entering into a deal that was right for us and one which signals a bright future for the European energy market."
Simon Watts of WBD added:
"We are delighted to have advised the shareholders of EnAppSys on this complex international transaction. The deal was an opportunity to draw on our expertise in cross-border M&A in a sector that is particularly under the spotlight at the moment."