Grant Thornton advises BPL

BPL – an insurance broker specialising in credit and political risk insurance for corporations, financial institutions, global investors and public agencies – was preparing to exchange on a major transaction. Deal progress had stalled however as the incumbent tax adviser was unable to provide an acquisition structure that worked in the context of one of BPL’s USPs – its employee ownership.

Within 48 hours of an initial call with CFO Tim Cullis and Group CEO Sian Aspinall, our team delivered a strawman paper setting out viable solutions. 

We then engaged directly with the bidder and its advisers to walk through the proposed approach. 

We brought the breadth and depth of our specialist transaction tax, valuations and accounting advisory teams together to ensure a robust deal structure was executed, working closely with BPL’s legal advisers (Skadden) and CFA (Hines Associates), as well as the legal and tax advisers to the buyer (K&E and PwC).

We also identified additional value opportunities that materially improved the deal economics, such as a material corporation tax benefit on the exercise of employee share options.