Firms sink teeth into West Cornwall Pasty buy-in job

Addleshaw Goddard, Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), Burgess Salmon and DLA Piper have all played a role in the private equity-backed management buy-in of the West Cornwall Pasty Company.

Addleshaws, led by private equity head Andrew Carpenter and partner Mike Hinchcliffe, advised the management team comprising of Patrick Magarth and Richard Nieto.

According to Hinchcliffe, the deal differed from other buy-ins because Magarth and Nieto had spent more than a year with the company before the transaction went through.

"The management team put in a significant amount of effort to understand what needed to be addressed to help deliver the deal to the vendors and take it to the market," he said.

The management team attracted Gresham Private Equity as a majority shareholder with management taking the remainder of the equity. Gresham was advised by DLA Piper's UK corporate head David Raff.

Lloyds TSB Acquisition Finance provided the funding for the acquisition, advised by BLP, led by banking and capital markets partner Michael Ewart.

The vendor was advised by Burgess Salmon corporate finance partner Chris Godfrey.

The cash injection will allow the West Cornwall Pasty Company to open 50 new outlets across the UK.