International alternative capital solutions provider Duke Royalty has provided £5 million debt royalty financing to New Path Fire and Security (New Path), an investment holding company operating in the UK&I fire and security (“F&S”) sector. The funding agreement also involved Duke Royalty becoming a 15% shareholder in New Path, and agreeing a total funding commitment of up to £20 million to support New Path’s buy-and-build strategy across the UK. Duke Royalty turned to PKF SC Corporate Finance to support its first deal in the F&S sector due to the PKF team’s growing specialism and expertise in the sector. PKF’s role was to undertake a comprehensive commercial diligence exercise on New Path, its position in the market, and the wider F&S market. PKF has developed a significant specialism in the F&S market in recent years, its track record including assisting integrated security and fire safety solutions specialist, Total Integrated Solutions, in securing investment from private equity house Key Capital Partners. New Path is a fast-growing investment platform, focused on acquiring independent fire safety and security companies throughout the South of England. Its group companies cover all aspects of fire safety including installation, maintenance, servicing, testing and monitoring, and a variety of security services, including CCTV and door entry systems. New Path has acquired seven businesses since it was established in 2020, and the £5 million funding from Duke Royalty will fund a further two acquisitions which are currently at advanced stages in New Path’s pipeline. Commenting on the deal and PKF’s role, Alex Hibbard, Vice President at Duke Royalty, said: “Duke is excited to be partnering with New Path to support their buy and build strategy; we look forward to helping them to continue consolidating a mission-critical sector. Duke looked to the PKF Smith Cooper CF team for a review of the sectors and sub-sectors that New Path operates in, addressing a detailed scope with well-researched analysis, delivered in a short time window. We were happy with their insightful output, which was delivered within our timeframe.” James Ward, Corporate Finance Director at PKF Smith Cooper and leader of the F&S team, said: “It’s been a privilege to assist Duke Royalty in making its first funding transaction in the F&S sector; they recognised the potential of New Path’s plan to create a group of specialist F&S businesses with a diverse service offering in the highly fragmented F&S sector. Duke’s funding package will enable New Path to complete on two deals in advanced stages of negotiation, and to continue their expansion thereafter. We wish New Path’s management and Duke Royalty, with which we’ve worked on two previous transactions, every success with their strategy.” PKF Smith Cooper is an award-winning advisory and accountancy firm; PKF Smith Cooper’s Corporate Finance team was crowned ‘SME Advisory Team of the Year’ at Insider’s 2022 Midlands Dealmakers Awards this Autumn.

Revenue is expected to be below market expectations while loss before tax is expected to be higher than anticipated for the year ending 30 November 2022 at Derbyshire-based Light Science Technologies. In a new trading update, the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) technology and contract electronics manufacturing (CEM) group said that while group revenue grew by approximately 10.5% in the year, this is around 13% below market expectations. Group loss before tax meanwhile is anticipated to be approximately £850k higher than market expectations. It comes as a result of a positive sales pipeline being negated by an elongation of the sales cycle, predominantly driven by input inflation experienced by growers which cannot currently be passed on to customers, leading to growers delaying capital expenditure. Additionally, gross margins at the group’s CEM division have been diluted through the second half of the year, driven by significant price volatility in the global electronics component market. The group was anticipating certain revenue streams materialising before 30 November 2022, which would have delivered financials in line with market forecasts for the period. However, these have been delayed. These revenue streams are now expected to materialise next year.

Nottingham-based BCM Specials Ltd, the Specials manufacturer in the UK owned by Fareva, has been acquired by global medical cannabis business, Avida Global Ltd. The new company, Avida Medical, will manufacture and distribute medicinal cannabis products in the UK, in addition to servicing the existing Specials business. Avida Medical will remain in the D10 Building, Thane Road, Beeston before relocating to a new site in Nottingham later next year. Avida Medical will be headed up by Paul Parkinson, chief operations officer, MD and head of UK operations at Avida Global. Neil Bashforth, general manager at BCM Specials will assume the role of Managing Director, Avida Medical. All 50 BCM Specials employees will transfer across to the new business. This acquisition gives Avida Global the accreditation and complete set of licenses required to import, manufacture and distribute medicinal cannabis products in the UK for the human and veterinary market, thereby surpassing this lengthy, complicated and costly process. David Kirby, Chief Executive Officer at Avida Global, said: “This transformative acquisition is incredibly exciting and gives us extraordinary potential as a business, giving us immediate access to the UK medical cannabis market, home to one of the largest patient populations using cannabis in Europe. “Our primary driver has always been to bring quality to life and we are committed to supplying the highest quality products, working with partners to create new innovative cannabis-based medicines and helping to improve patient access.”