HCRG (Health Care Resourcing Group), the market-leading recruitment group, has sold its homecare provider businesses CRG Homecare and Allied Healthcare.

Having acquired Allied Healthcare on the brink of insolvency, the business has been transformed during our period of ownership. By staying true to our core principles we have driven an outstanding shareholder return in under three years.

We supported and augmented the Allied management team; executing challenging strategic and operational decisions in order to quickly return the business to breakeven trading and successfully raise the CQC rating. We later merged Allied with CRG Homecare to further increase profitability and deliver outstanding care services during the toughest months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both businesses now have a total revenue of £75m, establishing the group as one of the top five home care businesses in the UK.

We are proud to have created a highly attractive, scaled and profitable brand in this highly competitive home care services market.

We have launched a $20 million hedge fund with MP Alpha Capital.

As our portfolio of businesses expands and we continue to manage assets in excess of £1bn, we’re excited to develop this strategic partnership with MP Alpha Capital. By making a cornerstone investment into the fund, we diversify our portfolio and provide a hedge on risk.

Our teams are incredibly passionate about diversification and driving exponential growth. We’re bold in our decision-making and use our unbeatable expertise to achieve the best results, which is exactly how we approached this collaboration with MP Alpha Capital.

MP Alpha Capital, which was founded by John Phillips and Damien Miller, is a hybrid and asymmetrical fund mixing digital assets and equities for the post-pandemic world. During their first fundraising round in 2022, $20m was successfully secured, enabling the fund to go live in the AKJ Ecosystem — a fully digital hedge fund management service.

Damien Miller, Founding Partner of MP Alpha Capital, commented: “Twenty20 Capital will bring a wealth of expertise across a wide spectrum of sectors, including M&A and debt advisory. We look forward to a prosperous partnership as we continue to explore the world of innovation and digital assets in the post-pandemic landscape.”

The AKJ group of companies (AKJ) provides a full-service ecosystem for hedge fund managers. The group, established in 1995, serves hedge fund and institutional clients in 35 countries around the world and is owned by shareholders with over US$18 billion in assets under management.

Gunnar Detlie, CEO of AKJ Investment Management, comments: “Given our unique position and extensive experience working with high-quality funds in both crypto and traditional markets, we are excited to be supporting the launch of MP Alpha Capital, the first hybrid fund on our platform.”

Talos360, an award-winning provider of human capital management (HCM) solutions, has chosen to partner with leading mid-market private equity firm LDC to support the next stage of its growth journey.

The company, which was co-founded by Stephen Rundell and Tomas Coulter in 2009, is one of the UK’s fastest growing HR technology provider. Its proprietary recruitment and engagement technology helps businesses to better attract, recruit and retain talent, and it is a trusted partner to more than 700 businesses. Customers range from SMEs to blue chip organisations, and include household names such as Easyhotel, The Entertainer, Homebase, Graham & Brown and Purplebricks.

Talos360 has become a market leader in SaaS talent solutions through the quality of its product and the service its team provides. It has also built a reputation as a people-first business through its commitment to supporting employees. This was independently recognised earlier this year when Talos360 was named the fifth-best workplace in tech by Great Place to Work.

Today, Talos360 employs more than 120 people at its headquarters in Warrington. It has grown rapidly in recent years, ending 2021 with increased revenue of 56% – which includes a 94% increase in tech revenues – and is on target to finish 2022 with a turnover of more than £10m.

LDC is backing the existing management team, led by CEO Janette Martin and Co-Founder Stephen Rundell, to support their organic growth strategy and explore complementary acquisitions.

With LDC’s support, Janette and the team will be able to further invest in product development and continue to evolve its proposition for the benefit of new and existing customers. The partnership will also enable the team to create further opportunities for employees and it plans to create more than 50 new jobs by 2025.

The investment was led by John Clarke, Investment Director at LDC in the North West. He was supported by Investment Managers Camilla Greenwood and Grant Goodwin, and Dale Alderson, Partner and Head of LDC in the North West.

Both John and Dale will join the board as Non-Executive Directors, alongside Chris Herrmannsen, Founder of global talent acquisition and management business Ochre House, who joins as Non-Executive Chair.

Stephen Rundell, Co-Founder of Talos360, said: “We’re really proud of the business we’ve built, and I’d like to thank Tristan and the team at Twenty20 Capital for helping us to get to where we are today. As we look to the next stage of our strategy, we see huge potential for continued growth and with the team’s track record and sector expertise we’re confident LDC is the partner to help us tap into this.

“We also wanted a partner who would be a good cultural fit. Our people are our most important asset and to have a partner that mirrors the characteristics we look for in our own employees – caring, genuine and down to earth – was key for us.”

Janette Martin, CEO at Talos360, added: “I am incredibly excited about our partnership with LDC. We share a passion for developing people-first, high-growth businesses and I can’t wait to have the team join us at the boardroom table. From day one, it was clear that LDC is an investment partner that backs management teams and supports their strategy, which is exactly how we want to work.

“I’m so proud of what we have achieved so far and there is no doubt that we have an incredible opportunity ahead of us. Our amazing team is brimming with ideas, and we’re looking forward to what we can bring to both existing and new customers. To have a partner that will add value and support us along the way is exactly what we were looking for.”

John Clarke, Investment Director at LDC, said: “Talos360 is a fantastic business and the management team’s strategy of putting its people and customers first has enabled them to build an enviable proposition within the market. There’s a real opportunity to build on this, enabling the business to support more customers with their talent strategies, and we’re looking forward to supporting Janette, Stephen and the wider team on their journey.”

LDC has a strong heritage of supporting the growth of HR SaaS businesses. The private equity firm successfully backed the growth plans of workforce management software specialist Mitrefinch, helping the management team to double revenues and increase employee numbers by 64 per cent during its four-year partnership. It also supported HCM software solutions provider CIPHR during a four-year partnership, helping the management team to double its headcount and drive a compound annual revenue growth of more than 25 per cent.

Janette Martin has recently been named one of LDC’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders of 2022. This follows her being recognised as The Optima Talent Tech Leader of the Year at The TIARA Talent Tech Star Awards, where Talos360 was also awarded The Talent Tech Scale-Up Award in recognition of the company’s growth.

Houlihan Lokey (Dominic Orsini, James Grundy, Matt Doyle and Ben Levett-Dunn) both originated and acted as lead adviser on the transaction, providing corporate finance advice to Talos360. Legal advice was provided by Addleshaw Goddard.

LDC was advised by GP Bullhound (corporate finance) and DWF (legals).

As part of our alternative investment strategy, we have invested through Kingsway Capital joining KKR and Soros in a $500m funding round to support the growth of Animoca Brands.

This investment puts us at the birth of a new sustainable and high-growth asset class which is going to disrupt the world of work: revolutionise learning; change job interviews; transform home working; speed up the adoption of crypto; create new jobs –as part of our ESG commitment to drive health and wellbeing; increase education opportunities; drive gender equality and contribute to decent work and economic growth.

Animoca is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification, and is working to advance digital property rights. Being a Deloitte Tech Fast winner and ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pac 2021, they have a growing portfolio of more than 200 investments in NFT-related companies and decentralised projects that are contributing to building the open metaverse. Animoca are owners of The Sandbox and Power Rangers, and have broad licensing of brand for the metaverse to include Snoop Dog, Formula E, and the Adams family to name a few.

The Metaverse Continuum will transform how businesses interact with customers, how work is done, what products and services companies offer, how they make and distribute them, and how they operate their organisations. The ‘digital twin market’, valued at $3.21bn in 2020 is expected to reach $184.5bn by 2030 according to Accenture.

We have acquired the former Virgin Care company from the Virgin Group, rebranding it as HCRG Care Group.

Under the leadership of Dr Vivienne McVey, the newly named HCRG Care Group has evolved to become a respected and trusted partner in the provision of high-quality and excellent value health and care services, making a positive difference to millions of people across the country.

The acquisition of Virgin Care and rebranding to HCRG Care Group represents an opportunity to support a strong management team and broader workforce to deliver critical health and care services across the community. We are excited to support the company’s plans to build its strong market position, grow its offering and enhance the quality of services to health and care commissioners.

Dr Vivienne McVey, former CEO says; “With the support of Twenty20 Capital our team can continue to focus on changing lives by transforming health and care working with commissioners, communities and our hard-working frontline colleagues to deliver joined-up, efficient but above all high-quality services.”

This acquisition is our seventh transaction of 2022 and our fourth acquisition in the health and social services sector adding c. £260m of revenues to our growing portfolio of businesses.

Close Brothers is a leading UK merchant banking group offering lending, deposit taking, wealth management services and securities trading. As a FTSE250 company, they employ over 3,000 people, principally in the UK, and are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

We are proud to have worked with Close Brothers to conclude a number of pivotal deals, the most recent being that of the Cordant Group, a provider of international workforce-based solutions.

Acquisitions, supported by Close Brothers, have contributed to our phenomenal growth over the last 4 years.

Watch the video below to find out more from our very own Tristan Ramus, Chairman and Principal Founder, and Jamie Webb, Chief Investment Officer.

Having held the CRG Clinical Services asset for 3 years we are delighted with our strategic exit to Polaris Medical.

Polaris Medical operate in the same sector and will provide CRG Clinical Services with a strong platform for investment and growth.

We have signed an agreement to transfer ownership of high volume business, PMP Recruitment to Challenge-trg Group.

We are delighted to announce the merger of two-sector giants; PMP Recruitment and Challenge-trg Group. After 18 months of considerable investment, the PMP Recruitment business has gone from strength to strength, making it a strategic acquisition for Challenge-trg Group, positioning them as the UK’s largest blue-collar labour provider.

The collaborative move demonstrates our ability to identify the right partner at the right time; ensuring our ongoing success is aligned to our own values. The deal reinforces our focus on creating value for shareholders whilst remaining well-positioned to build momentum through portfolio growth, increased customer wins and new vertical entry points.

Cordant CEO Jamie Reynolds said: “With the support of the Twenty20 board, we have built out and expanded the PMP Recruitment business. In pursuit of operational success, we’ve recognised that Challenge-trg Group is well-positioned to leverage the numerous growth opportunities linked to the brand and the sector it operates in”.

Tom Cropper, Group CEO of Challenge-trg, said: “This is a really exciting time for Challenge-trg Group and PMP Recruitment. By coming together and pooling our resources and experience, we can offer our clients the ultimate service in our sector.

“As a business, our vision and values align – we are both focused on creating a work environment that develops and supports our employees. Through a combined passion for service, innovation and employee development, this merger is undoubtedly going to create opportunities for personnel and clients alike”.

Cordant Security, Cordant Cleaning and Cordant Thistle become part of Bidvest Noonan.

We are delighted to be able to announce the sale of Cordant Services to Bidvest Noonan.

After a long history of exceptional service delivery, and having truly established itself as a trusted brand, we recognised that Cordant Services would be better positioned with an aligned organisation. The move reinforces our focus on realising value for shareholders whilst generating strategic growth within the staffing and human capital sector.

The exit of Cordant Services demonstrates our ability to drive market-leading performance with an outstanding management team and finding the right partner at the right time to support future success.