Abacus Finance Group was the Administrative Agent and Joint Lead Arranger for the senior secured credit facilities used to support the recapitalization of ALKU by WestView Capital Partners in December 2015.
“Selecting Abacus for this transaction was an easy decision,” said WestView General Partner Jonathan Hunnicutt. “We have known and worked with the principals of Abacus for years, they have led a number of transactions for us, and invariably they ask the right questions and establish excellent rapport with the management of the firms we are funding.”
ALKU is a consulting services firm that provides skilled consulting resources through three divisions: ALKU Technologies, ALKU Quality and ALKU Government Solutions.
- ALKU Technologies assists clients with enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations specifically within the areas of SAP, PeopleSoft, and Workday.
- ALKU Quality provides medical device, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with Federal Drug Administration (FDA) remediation, validation, and compliance services.
- ALKU Government Solutions provides systems and software engineering, cyber security, data, and military intelligence analytic services to government customers and large systems integrators within the intelligence, defense and energy sectors.
According to WestView, ALKU is one of the fastest growing firms within its sector with an historical compound annual growth rate of over 55% since its founding in 2008. ALKU had approximately $80 million in revenue last year. The company is led by CEO Mark Eldridge and is headquartered north of Boston in Andover, MA (www.alku.com).
Abacus provides cash flow senior financing to private equity-sponsored, lower-middle market companies that have EBITDA between $3 million and $15 million. Debt facilities can be as large as $50 million with a typical hold size ranging from $10 million to $30 million. Abacus is an affiliate of New York Private Bank & Trust, the holding company for Emigrant Bank, founded in 1850. Abacus is based in New York (www.abacusfinance.com).
“In this transaction, as in many others with WestView, the critical element was our ability to be flexible in structuring the transaction and provide certainty of a quick and smooth closing – important aspects of what we call our Total Partnership Approach,” said Tim Clifford, President and CEO of Abacus. Abacus team members involved in the transaction also included Sean McKeever and Brian Green.
WestView Capital Partners makes majority and minority investments of $10 million to $50 million in lower middle market growth companies. Sectors of interest include healthcare services, business and technology services, software, industrial/manufacturing, and consumer/retail. Target companies will have operating profits between $3 million and $20 million. WestView manages approximately $1 billion in capital across three funds and is headquartered in Boston (www.wvcapital.com).
“We are fortunate to have a great working relationship with WestView, a premier sponsor firm that has repeatedly brought us quality companies like ALKU,” said Mr. Clifford.
Fairmount Partners (www.fairmountpartners.com) served as ALKU’s exclusive financial advisor on the transaction and Blank Rome (www.blankrome.com) provided legal counsel.
© 2016 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 1-11-16
