Corbett Keeling is delighted to have advised John and Karen Raquet, founders and owners of gasworld on the sale of their business to its senior management team, led by Martyn Hammond and backed by private equity firm Mobeus Equity Partners. We ran a full process for John and Karen, exploring a wide range of buyers and helping them evaluate the relative merits of different types of purchasers. The completed transaction allows the shareholders to take a step back from the business, whilst the management team step into a larger role.

Our role:
We kicked off the sale process in 2020 with a Positioning and Readiness Optimisation Review (“PRO Review”) which gave gasworld’s owners, a comprehensive understanding of the value they could expect for the business at that time, identified measures which might be undertaken to increase that value and reviewed how ready they were for a sale process. On the back of the PRO Review, John and Karen asked Corbett Keeling to start a sale process the following year. In the first step, it was crucial to draft an information memorandum highlighting the many key strengths of the gasworld business model. At the same time we discussed and selected with John & Karen buyers we should approach on their behalf.

Interested parties were provided with all the relevant information they needed in order to put forward offers for the business. As to be expected in a sales process, the offers varied in structure, value and timing of payments. We advised John and Karen on the relative merits of each and together shortlisted preferred offers. The Corbett Keeling team then worked hard with the potential buyers to expand their offer letters into detailed heads of terms documents covering the key commercial aspects of the transaction, thus ensuring both the chosen buyer and the seller had a clear understanding of how the transaction would work and there could be little room for disagreement later in the process. Once the full terms of the transaction had been agreed, John and Karen selected Mobeus Private Equity as their preferred buyer and entered exclusivity with them; we then managed the due diligence and legal documentation process to reach a satisfactory completion for all involved.

About gasworld:
Headquartered in Cornwall, gasworld was founded in 2003 to provide more transparency in the technical world of industrial gases. gasworld is a leading provider of industry news, data and events to the industrial gases market and the fast-evolving hydrogen economy. In 2019, they developed “H2 View” following the growing importance of hydrogen in the low-carbon economy.