Executive education and research business Møller Institute, based in Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, has secured a six-figure annual contract with China’s largest bank, ICBC.

The deal is due to connections made through the Department for International Trade (DIT) and its strong track record in China.

Møller Institute, which is owned by Churchill College, works with academics and industry leaders to develop in-depth practical leadership development programmes to help organisations improve their business strategy, innovate and navigate new challenges.

Its second contract in two years with the bank will see Møller deliver a leadership development programme for more than 25 senior executives on practical leadership, FinTech and corporate governance with support from UK economists, consultants and representatives from the financial service and professional service sectors.

Møller first started developing a relationship with ICBC in 2015 when it attended a specialist Professional and Financial Services Trade Mission with DIT to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and met representatives from numerous Chinese financial institutions.

Mark Carberry, director of client and product development at Møller Institute, said: “Over the last 10 years, we’ve experienced rapid growth in China and the country now accounts for a significant part of our executive education income.

“Attending the forum allowed us to achieve further exposure to Chinese financial institutions. DIT facilitated 1-2-1 meetings which allowed us to have in depth discussions with key decision makers.

“We’re now working with DIT to build on this by pursuing new opportunities in the Middle East and Japan, to complement our existing work with UK and executive education clients in other European countries.

“Our service is unique and we’ve found a real appetite for UK consultancy internationally, which businesses of any sector can tap into.”

Alan Pain, head of exports for DIT in the East of England, added: “The new contract with ICBC is an important next step for Møller Institute. Working with such a renowned financial institution will help lead to greater recognition for the business in China and across the globe.”

The deals environment continues to be the best seller’s market we have seen for some time, writes Chris Wilson, Corporate Finance director, KPMG Cambridge.

This is borne out in the numbers, with Experian figures for the first nine months of 2018 revealing that the East of England accounted for almost 12 per cent of all M & A activity outside of London – a significant part of the national picture and testament to the quality of businesses in our region – with aggregate deal values up almost 30 per cent on the same period last year!

Corporate acquirers with strong balance sheets continue to seek strategic acquisition targets. Trade buyers from the US have been active as we’ve seen with Oracle’s acquisition of Grapeshot and more recently UL’s acquisition of Medical Device Usability. 

UK corporates are also busy, as demonstrated by Hilton Food Group’s acquisition of Icelandic Seachill and the acquisition of PLASgran by RPC Group.

The Private Equity community is sitting on more dry powder than ever and is looking to the East of England for quality investment opportunities.  

Prominent transactions this year include Inflexion’s investment in Lintbells; the acquisition of Mountain Healthcare by Literacy Capital; and LDC’s investment in Right Choice Insurance Brokers.

The region also remains a prime investment destination for Venture Capital (VC)  with more than £470 million invested between March and September alone. 

Notable deals across the region include the £65 million series B fundraise by Cambridge-based drug developer Artios and the £74m Series B venture funding for CMR Surgical. 

Health and pharmaceutical enterprises have continued to attract the deep pockets of VC investors who are placing their money on building the next generation of pharmaceuticals. 

With the population in the UK getting older, it is expected that biotech will continue to be a big bet for the foreseeable future. Good news for our region given our global reputation for producing innovative biotech and healthcare enterprises.

Can it continue?

It’s tempting to speculate whether deal activity will start to lose momentum as the macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds gather pace.  In our case, I don’t think so. The overriding desire from acquirers and investors for quality assets is here to stay, and we have an abundance of these.

That is not to say that there aren’t any challenges on the horizon. There is a degree of fragility in the funding environment and the current economic uncertainty could prevail for some time. 

Successful businesses will be those that address the challenges head on and which have the financial agility to capitalise on those opportunities which will inevitably arise.

Now is the time for good financial housekeeping. Businesses need to review contracts and model their access to liquidity. Having the right funding structures and financing lines in place – and, where necessary, having alternatives mapped out – should be a priority.

Having sufficient working capital to maintain good cashflow and appropriate hedging in place for things like foreign exchange rates, fuel and commodities, will also be important.

In fact, we are seeing many businesses who have bank facility maturity dates in 2019 and 2020 go early and secure facilities now for the next three to five years to take advantage of attractive borrowing rates and tenures.

It is also imperative that businesses have credit insurance arranged to protect themselves against late payments and from customers going under. And finally, solid business continuity plans need to be developed to help mitigate any major economic or supply chain volatility. Business leaders in the East of England are pragmatic and they appreciate the challenges that lie ahead.
 
So, what’s to come?

Whether it be corporates with healthy amounts of cash on their balance sheets, or private equity institutions seeking to deploy their war chests, investors from all sectors have been willing to pay the kinds of multiples not seen since before the financial crisis for the types of businesses that thrive in the East of England: fast-growing assets that have a compelling growth story or which use cutting edge technology to disrupt a market. This has kept us very busy at KPMG! Our successfully completed deals this year are an interesting cross-section of the wider market.

While we cannot predict right now how or where things might land over the coming months, we can at least be prepared. And with the support of a mature and established financial services community, the region can emerge stronger and ready for the future, whatever shape it takes.  

At KPMG, we can look ahead with confidence knowing there’s a growing selection of further deals in the pipeline – the headwinds are not hitting our region just yet! 

And it’s not just our pipeline of work which continues to grow. We have made a number of excellent strategic appointments to our local Corporate Finance team over the last 12 months and I expect this trend to continue.

I am personally really excited about what 2019 has to offer. But we still have plenty to do this year first and 2018 is far from over!

The deals environment continues to be the best seller’s market we have seen for some time, writes Chris Wilson, Corporate Finance director, KPMG Cambridge.

This is borne out in the numbers, with Experian figures for the first nine months of 2018 revealing that the East of England accounted for almost 12 per cent of all M & A activity outside of London – a significant part of the national picture and testament to the quality of businesses in our region – with aggregate deal values up almost 30 per cent on the same period last year!

Corporate acquirers with strong balance sheets continue to seek strategic acquisition targets. Trade buyers from the US have been active as we’ve seen with Oracle’s acquisition of Grapeshot and more recently UL’s acquisition of Medical Device Usability. 

UK corporates are also busy, as demonstrated by Hilton Food Group’s acquisition of Icelandic Seachill and the acquisition of PLASgran by RPC Group.

The Private Equity community is sitting on more dry powder than ever and is looking to the East of England for quality investment opportunities.  

Prominent transactions this year include Inflexion’s investment in Lintbells; the acquisition of Mountain Healthcare by Literacy Capital; and LDC’s investment in Right Choice Insurance Brokers.

The region also remains a prime investment destination for Venture Capital (VC)  with more than £470 million invested between March and September alone. 

Notable deals across the region include the £65 million series B fundraise by Cambridge-based drug developer Artios and the £74m Series B venture funding for CMR Surgical. 

Health and pharmaceutical enterprises have continued to attract the deep pockets of VC investors who are placing their money on building the next generation of pharmaceuticals. 

With the population in the UK getting older, it is expected that biotech will continue to be a big bet for the foreseeable future. Good news for our region given our global reputation for producing innovative biotech and healthcare enterprises.

Can it continue?

It’s tempting to speculate whether deal activity will start to lose momentum as the macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds gather pace.  In our case, I don’t think so. The overriding desire from acquirers and investors for quality assets is here to stay, and we have an abundance of these.

That is not to say that there aren’t any challenges on the horizon. There is a degree of fragility in the funding environment and the current economic uncertainty could prevail for some time. 

Successful businesses will be those that address the challenges head on and which have the financial agility to capitalise on those opportunities which will inevitably arise.

Now is the time for good financial housekeeping. Businesses need to review contracts and model their access to liquidity. Having the right funding structures and financing lines in place – and, where necessary, having alternatives mapped out – should be a priority.

Having sufficient working capital to maintain good cashflow and appropriate hedging in place for things like foreign exchange rates, fuel and commodities, will also be important.

In fact, we are seeing many businesses who have bank facility maturity dates in 2019 and 2020 go early and secure facilities now for the next three to five years to take advantage of attractive borrowing rates and tenures.

It is also imperative that businesses have credit insurance arranged to protect themselves against late payments and from customers going under. And finally, solid business continuity plans need to be developed to help mitigate any major economic or supply chain volatility. Business leaders in the East of England are pragmatic and they appreciate the challenges that lie ahead.
 
So, what’s to come?

Whether it be corporates with healthy amounts of cash on their balance sheets, or private equity institutions seeking to deploy their war chests, investors from all sectors have been willing to pay the kinds of multiples not seen since before the financial crisis for the types of businesses that thrive in the East of England: fast-growing assets that have a compelling growth story or which use cutting edge technology to disrupt a market. This has kept us very busy at KPMG! Our successfully completed deals this year are an interesting cross-section of the wider market.

While we cannot predict right now how or where things might land over the coming months, we can at least be prepared. And with the support of a mature and established financial services community, the region can emerge stronger and ready for the future, whatever shape it takes.  

At KPMG, we can look ahead with confidence knowing there’s a growing selection of further deals in the pipeline – the headwinds are not hitting our region just yet! 

And it’s not just our pipeline of work which continues to grow. We have made a number of excellent strategic appointments to our local Corporate Finance team over the last 12 months and I expect this trend to continue.

I am personally really excited about what 2019 has to offer. But we still have plenty to do this year first and 2018 is far from over!

Cambridge proteins pioneer Fluidic Analytics has raised $31 million to continue developing its transformational products for characterising proteins and their behaviour. 

The cash will underpin the commercial roll-out of the Cambridge University spin-out’s lab-tools pipeline and to develop further high-value clinical applications of its technology.

The financing was led by Draper Esprit, a pan-European venture capital fund that invests in disruptive technology companies at the early and growth stages. Joining the round as new investors were Delin Ventures and BGF, making its largest life-sciences investment to date and first in Cambridge. 

IQ Capital and Amadeus Capital Partners also joined Draper Esprit in backing Fluidic Analytics for a third successive time since the company’s first financing in 2015.

Proteins and their behaviour are crucial to understanding how diseases develop, identifying the way that drugs interact with their targets, and developing new methods for matching the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. 

DNA gives clues about what is likely to happen over a lifetime. Proteins and their behaviour tell us what is actually happening now. To date, the emergence of a deep understanding of the biology underlying disease and health in real time has been hampered by the shortcomings of existing tools for protein characterisation. 

Fluidic Analytics’ products are based on a proprietary technology platform from the UK’s University of Cambridge. The platform was designed explicitly to give deep insights into the way that proteins fold, aggregate and interact by characterising them in solution – precisely as they exist in the body. 

These products have the potential to help researchers understand the mechanisms underlying conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, pharmaceutical companies develop more effective drugs, and patients gain access to more accurate diagnostics in the clinic, at the pharmacy or even at home. 

Dr Andrew Lynn, CEO at Fluidic Analytics, said: “This financing will power the global commercial launch of our Fluidity One system and enable our team to bring our next two lab-tools products to market. It will also allow us to advance a number of high-potential clinical applications that could help us make an even bigger impact on the world.” 

Vishal Gulati, Healthtech VC, Draper Esprit plc, added: “We are always looking for the brightest thinkers with the best teams and technology to back for the long-term and we have found that in Fluidic Analytics. 

“The progress that Fluidic has made to date has been exemplary. As we enter the century of biology, the world needs transformational technologies that can help us understand the full picture of how biology unfolds in daily life and we are delighted to be backing a company that is doing just that.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Dr Andrew Lynn

BioMedTech figureheads have spelled out the potential payback power of an expertly curated Cambridge UK-China life science axis.

Alan Hirzel, CEO of quoted Cambridge life science business Abcam – one of the cluster’s 16 unicorns – said the company saw China “as the greatest single opportunity for the life sciences market in our life times.”

Cambridge University biotech thought leader Professor Christopher Lowe echoed the incredible progress made in China, while adding a caveat about the need to hone certain elements of the IP proposition.

The ringing endorsement of a lucrative new trade highway for the UK emerged from one of the key sessions at the inaugural Cambridge China Forum at the Guildhall.

Hirzel, who is steering a fresh surge of global growth for life science research tool supplier Abacam, said: “We see China s the greatest single opportunity for the life sciences market in our life times.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, but there’s still time.” Hirzel said Abcam made its first sale to China in 2003 and the country now accounted for 15 per cent of its revenue at £35 million.

Chinese policy, major funding and a commitment to bringing improved healthcare to the people who live in China were all helping to drive a significant amount of Chinese innovation, he said.

“My advice is absolutely to go to this market,” Hirzel said – adding that China had shaken off its hackneyed tag as purely a low-cost producer. Those days are over if they were ever around. Go to China with a growth mindset and make sure you’ve got great local talent to work with. It’s been essential for us to have people who are very familiar with a place where there is great talent. There’s a lot of innovation in China and you’ve got to invest in that talent.”

Chairing the session , Dr Li Su, ARUK – senior research Fellow at Cambridge University’s Department of Psychiatry said the size of China alone made it an ideal market for life sciences.  “China has the most patients in the world and is the second largest pharma market after the United States so there’s a huge market there and also an ageing society.”

As people became older in China it puts huge demands on healthcare and the sector requires lots of research, he said

A key word that had been mentioned many times during the Forum was  ‘challenges’ and one challenge was the different ethics between the UK and China.

An opportunity, though, was the amount of money the Chinese government was investing in research. “Investment in research grew 30 times between 1995 and 2013,” he said “China’s generous salaries and lab spaces are also attracting people back to the country. So that might change the situation in a few years.”

Professor Chris Lowe, director of the Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences, said that on his first visit to China in 1983 there was nothing in the labs, not even benches.

“I’ve been there 10 times since and the quality of the laboratories is second to none,” he said. Despite having better labs and resources than existed in Cambridge he thought it would take “a little bit of time” before the “intellectual quality” of the Chinese life science proposition was right.

As someone who has spent many years working closely with companies both in China and those wanting to do business there, Professor Alan Barrell offered his own advice in the life sciences session.

“Be patient, do your research and understand Chinese culture deeply and never try and do it without having good Chinese partners,” he said. “Enjoy learning about the culture, take your time to do it and develop trust. Once you starting working with Chinese contacts and get to know them they will be your friends for life.”
Artificial Intelligence was another major topic at the Forum, organised by the increasingly influential Cambridge China Centre.

In her keynote speech on AI and Machine Learning, Simone Warren – managing director UKI & Nordics for Alibaba Cloud – said her company was forging ahead in this area, helping companies scale at speed, despite barriers including  cost, security and people skills needed.

“In terms of scale we’re talking about the power of the platform and the ability to run the algorithms that help with logistics,” she said. Singles Day, China’s equivalent to Black Friday, saw about 491,000 transactions per second taking place. It was an event that UK businesses had embraced, with the country being the second biggest exporter to China for the event.

Alibaba Cloud had also created ET (extreme technology) City Brain, which the Chinese city of Hangzhou, was the fist to adopt. ”This looks at optimising public transport in terms of route and trying to reduce congestion, traffic diagnostics and optimisation and can also do things like help develop public security. This isn’t’ technology that’s just like a gadget; it’s about making people’s lives better. It’s really impacting on citizens’ lives.”

Alibaba was also in discussions with the Department for International Trade, which is interested in what had already been achieved in China with Medical Brain, which analyses medical trends.

Dr Steve Marsh, founder and CTO of Cambridge big data company GeoSpock – part of whose focus is smart cities – said the business very much had its eye on China.

“China, which has the biggest number of smart cites on the planet, is a good future play for us,” he said. “We are in the midst of a revolution and the revolution is led by data. That revolution is shifting us away from human generated data to machine generated data.”The company had already worked with Cambridge, Oxford and Liverpool . One of the issues was that many of the smart systems worked in silos.

“Cambridge alone has 85, such as smart street lights, monitoring traffic conditions, and pollution readings I’m Looking forward to the point where we can use machine learning and AI  to keep a city running not just for today but for the future,” Marsh said.

Executives at Cambridge location technology business Ubisense believe they have lit the touchpaper to creating a potential new global leader in geospatial software after a £35 million disposal of the company’s RTLS SmartSpace unit along with the Ubisense brand.

Ubisense has conditionally agreed the sale to a company owned and controlled by funds managed or advised by Investcorp Technology Partners, an affiliate of Investcorp Bank B.S.C which operates worldwide from a mother ship in the Gulf.

CEO Richard Petti said the move would allow Ubisense to develop its retained IQGeo business into an international power player and trigger another tech first from the Cambridge Cluster.

Professionals who advised on the disposal also believe the reborn SmartSpace business could also be propelled into another Cambridge tech great – bringing a double payback from the transaction.

Richard Petti said: “This is an extremely positive change for both the RTLS SmartSpace and the IQGeo divisions which the board believes is in the long-term best interests of both businesses.

“The proceeds will allow us to refocus and re-brand the retained business as IQGeo and to invest in its myWorld software business which has a significant market opportunity providing solutions to some of largest telecoms and utilities suppliers in the world.

“As I look ahead to the potential for IQGeo, I am excited about the prospect of building on the success of our myWorld enterprise software which has increased revenues by a CAGR of more than 35 per cent since 2015.

“We have an excellent existing customer base across our target markets and a growing pipeline of new opportunities driven by worldwide growth in fibre broadband and 5G technology. From day one, the mission of the IQGeo team will be to build on existing foundations to create a global software business, with high levels of recurring revenues, high margins and strong cash flows.”

The UK stockmarket loved the deal, sending the shares more than 17 per cent higher and edging closer towards the 52-week high.

The reborn Cambridge end of the business will be branded IQGeo Group plc on completion of the sale working with telecoms and utilities companies worldwide.

In the audited results for the year ended December 31, Ubisense’s IQGeo business generated revenue of £16.5 million and in the unaudited first half results for the period ending June 30, it generated revenue of £5.7m.

Part of the consideration from the disposal of Ubisense’s SmartSpace iteration will be used to continue the globalisation of IQGeo, in particular in markets where fibre broadband and 5G investments are expected to increase significantly over the next five years.

Following the sale, the board intends to return excess funds to shareholders  and will keep them posted regarding the amount. The shares of IQGeo will trade on AIM under the ticker IQG. Cambridge professional services duo KPMG and Mills & Reeve advised Ubisense in the deal. Chris Wilson, Corporate Finance director with KPMG’s Cambridge practice said: We acted as sole financial provider. SmartSpace is an incredibly exciting business which is helping to create the smart factories of the future.

“Both Ubisense and SmartSpace are a hugely important part of Cambridge’s world-renowned technology ecosystem and this deal will help to propel both companies on the next stage of their growth journeys. As a local team, we are excited to see what this investment will bring as Cambridge continues to cement its reputation for producing innovative disruptive businesses of the future.”

A team at Mills & Reeve, led by Corporate Finance partner and equity capital markets specialist, Stephen Hamilton, is acting as legal adviser to Ubisense on the restructuring and sale.

Last month the Court of Appeal confirmed that two directors were liable for over £2 million in compensation after the dismissal of a whistleblower in their organisation, writes David Mills, partner at Mills & Reeve LLP. 

The former CEO had established that the directors concerned were behind the decision to end his employment because of protected disclosures he had made and were personally liable for his losses.

This claim would not have been possible before changes to the legislation in 2013 opened up the possibility of individuals being personally liable under whistleblowing legislation, in much the same as they have long liable been under our discrimination law. 

The employer remains jointly liable, but in this case there was an added incentive to pursue the individual directors because the company had become insolvent.

In most circumstances, the employer will remain the main target for claims, but there are some situations where its officers and employees could also be in the firing line. In this case the two directors were covered by insurance, though this did not have any influence on the Court of Appeal’s final decision.

Businesses will now wish to review their insurance arrangements to ensure that appropriate cover is in place to cover liabilities of this nature. 

It is likely to be a requirement of such cover that members of its senior management receive adequate training about their exposure to these claims, and the steps that should be taken to ensure that both they and their organisation are fully compliant with whistleblowing legislation.

• For more information, email David.mills [at] mills-reeve.com

Last month the Court of Appeal confirmed that two directors were liable for over £2 million in compensation after the dismissal of a whistleblower in their organisation, writes David Mills, partner at Mills & Reeve LLP. 

The former CEO had established that the directors concerned were behind the decision to end his employment because of protected disclosures he had made and were personally liable for his losses.

This claim would not have been possible before changes to the legislation in 2013 opened up the possibility of individuals being personally liable under whistleblowing legislation, in much the same as they have long liable been under our discrimination law. 

The employer remains jointly liable, but in this case there was an added incentive to pursue the individual directors because the company had become insolvent.

In most circumstances, the employer will remain the main target for claims, but there are some situations where its officers and employees could also be in the firing line. In this case the two directors were covered by insurance, though this did not have any influence on the Court of Appeal’s final decision.

Businesses will now wish to review their insurance arrangements to ensure that appropriate cover is in place to cover liabilities of this nature. 

It is likely to be a requirement of such cover that members of its senior management receive adequate training about their exposure to these claims, and the steps that should be taken to ensure that both they and their organisation are fully compliant with whistleblowing legislation.

• For more information, email David.mills [at] mills-reeve.com

Last month the Court of Appeal confirmed that two directors were liable for over £2 million in compensation after the dismissal of a whistleblower in their organisation, writes David Mills, partner at Mills & Reeve LLP. 

The former CEO had established that the directors concerned were behind the decision to end his employment because of protected disclosures he had made and were personally liable for his losses.

This claim would not have been possible before changes to the legislation in 2013 opened up the possibility of individuals being personally liable under whistleblowing legislation, in much the same as they have long liable been under our discrimination law. 

The employer remains jointly liable, but in this case there was an added incentive to pursue the individual directors because the company had become insolvent.

In most circumstances, the employer will remain the main target for claims, but there are some situations where its officers and employees could also be in the firing line. In this case the two directors were covered by insurance, though this did not have any influence on the Court of Appeal’s final decision.

Businesses will now wish to review their insurance arrangements to ensure that appropriate cover is in place to cover liabilities of this nature. 

It is likely to be a requirement of such cover that members of its senior management receive adequate training about their exposure to these claims, and the steps that should be taken to ensure that both they and their organisation are fully compliant with whistleblowing legislation.

• For more information, email David.mills [at] mills-reeve.com

Last month the Court of Appeal confirmed that two directors were liable for over £2 million in compensation after the dismissal of a whistleblower in their organisation, writes David Mills, partner at Mills & Reeve LLP. 

The former CEO had established that the directors concerned were behind the decision to end his employment because of protected disclosures he had made and were personally liable for his losses.

This claim would not have been possible before changes to the legislation in 2013 opened up the possibility of individuals being personally liable under whistleblowing legislation, in much the same as they have long liable been under our discrimination law. 

The employer remains jointly liable, but in this case there was an added incentive to pursue the individual directors because the company had become insolvent.

In most circumstances, the employer will remain the main target for claims, but there are some situations where its officers and employees could also be in the firing line. In this case the two directors were covered by insurance, though this did not have any influence on the Court of Appeal’s final decision.

Businesses will now wish to review their insurance arrangements to ensure that appropriate cover is in place to cover liabilities of this nature. 

It is likely to be a requirement of such cover that members of its senior management receive adequate training about their exposure to these claims, and the steps that should be taken to ensure that both they and their organisation are fully compliant with whistleblowing legislation.

• For more information, email David.mills [at] mills-reeve.com