The deal

Our Corporate Finance team has successfully advised the shareholders of IWS Group, The Industrial Workspace Specialists, on the acquisition of The Rack Group, the UK’s leading pallet racking safety, inspection, repair and maintenance professionals.

In December 2020 the team successfully secured new finance facilities for the Group. We are delighted to confirm that we have now advised the enlarged group on its first acquisition following a refinancing exercise.

Based in Barnsley, The Rack Group has been established for over 40 years and today provides its services to some of the UK’s biggest retailers and logistics operators. The Rack Group joins Beaverswood and Brandsafe under the IWS Group of companies, and further consolidates IWS Group’s position as market leaders in the provision of essential products and services to the logistics, warehousing and material handling sectors across Europe and beyond.

Our Corporate Finance team will continue to work closely with IWS Group shareholders Tim Lacey and Jeroen van den Berge, as they continue their buy and build growth strategy, with additional acquisition targets already identified.

Jeroen van den Berge, CEO at IWS Group, commented, “We are excited to welcome The Rack Group to the IWS family. As a business that has built a market-leading reputation for quality and expertise in racking safety, with a long-standing, multi-site customer base, it represents a strong and natural strategic fit for IWS Group.

The warehouse, logistics and materials handling sectors have seen unprecedented growth due to new shopping behaviours and IWS Group is bringing together businesses built on specialist expertise and customer centricity to serve these sectors with essential products and services. The addition of The Rack Group provides further opportunity to broaden the scope of services and solutions each of the IWS Group companies can offer their customers.

We continue to invest in talent, systems and strategic partnerships to enhance intra-group synergies, accelerate organic growth and facilitate the integration of future bolt-on acquisitions.”

“The team has successfully supported us with both the refinance and this acquisition process in parallel, which has proved to be a transformational period for IWS Group. We saw great benefit in having the team’s M&A and debt specialists closely and collaboratively together with us, Santander, the vendors and their advisers to manage the process through to a successful conclusion. Bil and the rest of the team have been a pleasure to work with.” Jeroen van den Berge, CEO at IWS Group

“We are delighted to have supported Tim and Jeroen on this transaction. They are building an impressive and sizeable business. The foundations are strong, business model resilient with the Group ideally positioned to scale. As with any transaction there were obstacles to overcome, but, working collegiately with all stakeholders, we were able to successfully navigate through these in a relatively short timeframe. We look forward to seeing the business flourish further and are excited by the prospect of supporting its growth strategy”. Bilal Hasan, Director at FRP Advisory