Shepherd and Wedderburn advises Satellite Solutions on acquisition hat-trick

Shepherd and Wedderburn acted in three recent acquisitions for Satellite Solutions Worldwide Group (SSW), an AIM listed Oxfordshire-based global communications company specialising in the provision of high-speed satellite and last-mile broadband solutions to remote locations.

The first deal, which catapulted Satellite Solutions into the top spot of Britain’s biggest satellite broadband providers, saw the company acquire the newly de-merged satellite division of Bristol-based, Avonline plc for £10 million.

Bringing Satellite Solutions closer to its target of adding 100,000 homes to its UK network by spring 2017, the transaction was funded by the Business Growth Fund (BGF), an organisation backed by five of the UK’s main banking groups ─ Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Standard Chartered ─ which invests in promising small and medium-sized British companies.

The deal was followed hard on its heels by the purchase of the share capital of Norway’s leading satellite broadband provider, Breiband.no AS and the simultaneous acquisition of the operations and assets of Skymesh Pty Limited, an Australian company delivering satellite and fixed wireless broadband solutions to rural communities. The combined value of these acquisitions was £11.7m, financed by a share placing.

Advising on all three acquisitions, the Shepherd and Wedderburn team of corporate finance, telecoms and technology lawyers was led by corporate partner George Frier, who has worked with SSW’s CFO, Frank Waters since his time at McLaren Software.

Mr Waters said: “It was no small feat acquiring three significant businesses in three different countries in just over three weeks, particularly in mid-summer, and we’ve had first class advice and service from the team at Shepherd and Wedderburn.

“If you read some of the news in the papers you may think the M&A world has taken a step back, reeling after the news on Brexit, but SSW is powering onwards towards its stated goals and we wouldn’t be in a position to maintain our roll-up momentum without this kind of quality professional support.”