Based in Edinburgh, Premier is a leading, award-winning independent provider of high-value asset finance solutions to a broad range of customers across the UK. It currently generates over £100 million of annual business volumes.
Premier was founded in 2008 by Mark Ripley and Kevin Davidson, both former main board directors of Bank of Scotland Asset Finance and highly respected across the asset finance industry. Between them, they have over 60 years of industry experience.
Founded in 1985, Paragon is a FTSE 250 listed banking group active in the mortgage, commercial loans and asset finance markets. The acquisition of Premier complements Paragon’s acquisition of Five Arrows in 2015 and further strengthens their presence in the buoyant UK asset finance market.
In a targeted process and through leveraging the team's extensive sector insight, relationships and knowledge of the buyers, we delivered a transaction which met the objectives of all the stakeholders.
Our team ran a highly competitive process, with much interest coming from both Private Equity and trade buyers before selecting Paragon as the preferred acquirer.
We project managed the entire sale process from start to finish, identifying the best potential buyers, leading negotiations to maximise shareholder value and resolving issues arising out of negotiations and due diligence to complete the transaction.
Tarun Mistry (Financial Services Corporate Finance Partner) and Antony Watkins (Financial Services Corporate Finance Associate Director), who led the deal, commented: “The sale of Premier represents another strong credential for the Financial Services Corporate Finance team within the asset finance market and is our fifth successful sale mandate in the sector in 11 months, making us the leading financial adviser in this market by some distance.”
The Grant Thornton team guided us from start to finish throughout what was a highly important transaction for us. The successful transaction with Paragon represents a new chapter in the Premier story and we are grateful to the Grant Thornton team for helping us successfully achieve this.
Mark Ripley and Kevin Davidson Co-founders, Premier Asset Finance Limited
