JMAN Group becomes the first data specialist to be a named adviser on a private equity exit in the UK

JMAN provided crucial data support and insights to Dains Accountants during its sale by Horizon Capital to IK Partners

JMAN Group, the leading commercial data partner for private equity funds and their portfolio companies, has become the first data specialist to be cited as an advisor on a major private equity exit in the UK.

The milestone reflects the growing importance of data support in both the facilitation of private equity deals and the full realisation of value. Dains, which provides a comprehensive suite of accounting and business advisory services to fast-growing small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK and Ireland, appointed JMAN to develop a catalogue of crucial data insights ahead of its sale by Horizon Capital.

Following investment from Horizon Capital in 2021, Dains has grown rapidly as a result of 10 strategic acquisitions and impressive organic growth. It now has 765 employees who serve a large and diversified customer base of over 17,000 clients.

JMAN created a bespoke data platform that collected, analysed and presented information on every financial and commercial metric required by Dains, Horizon Capital and its other advisors.

The key element to this project was that it combined all the data and systems from previous acquisitions to create one unified view of Dains. Not only did this help to make the exit process to IK Partners more efficient, it enabled Horizon Capital to maximise the value of the sale by surfacing and articulating Dains’ high performance and future growth potential. Horizon Capital achieved 8x invested capital and an IRR of 107%.

Anush Newman, CEO and co-Founder of JMAN, said: “Our work with Dains highlights just how fundamental creating precise and wide-ranging data insights are to the exit process. This is especially true in buy and build scenarios where crucial commercial and operational information can be fragmented across a group and difficult to present to investors.

“We are incredibly proud to be the first data company to be a named advisor on a deal of this type in the UK.”