Deal Round-up 16/07/01

LDC backs corporatewear business

Lloyds TSB Development Capital (LDC) has backed the £11.5m buyout of the corporatewear division of William Baird Plc by a new BIMBO company, Rainbow Corporatewear Limited.

Barclays Acquisition Finance arranged debt facilities for the transaction. Rainbow was advised by Mark Hodgkins, private equity partner at Ernst & Young LLP in Birmingham. Martineau Johnson acted as legal advisers to Rainbow, and Eversheds acted for LDC.

Rainbow was formed in April to complete the £1m purchase of Vermilion Corporatewear, based in Derby.


Trading software maker receives £2.35m from Baring

Baring English Growth Fund (BEGF) has completed an investment in Tamesis Limited, a developer of trading software for leading investment banks. BEGF has invested alongside British Smaller Technology Companies VCT2 and other VCT's managed by Yorkshire Fund Managers Limited.

Tamesis has created an trading system that llows customers to share both information and applications across IT systems without wholesale changes being made to architectures, protocols and network connections. The company counts Merrill Lynch among its clients.