Grant Thornton advises Harmonic Limited

Harmonic is a market-leading transformation and delivery consultancy, operating predominantly in the defence sector and enjoying embedded positions within their governmental and blue-chip client base.

Harmonic’s offer is underpinned by a rare combination of industry-leading capabilities in a range of technical areas, combined with a suite of proprietary tools and a track record of success. Harmonic designs and implements innovative solutions to complex problems, providing enterprise-wide business winning and project delivery services to many of the UK's largest and most complex organisations.

Having implemented an internal transformation process, resulting in strong year-on-year growth and exceptional pipeline visibility, the shareholders were looking to realise their investment, believing development would be accelerated under new ownership.

Given the broad appeal of the Harmonic offering, we approached both trade parties and private equity. Following a highly competitive process, KBR Inc. were chosen as the preferred bidder having demonstrated their strategic rationale and appetite to grow their UK defence consultancy business.

Our lead advisory and tax teams supported the business in preparing to go to market. We ran a competitive, dual track process which resulted in an efficient and competitive marketing process ably supported by the transaction tax and SPA advisory teams.

We had to manage a number of interested parties and to the delight of the shareholders, despite the challenges of a ‘virtual’ deal, we secured a deal solution that met all their  needs with a buyer that provided a great strategic fit and ongoing roles for the key management team