# Corinium Capital

Corinium Capital acquires established UK service and software businesses with loyal clients and recurring income, and runs what it buys. It gives owners a fair exit, looks after their team and clients, and invests in technology to make the business run better. The firm is led by Robin Smith.

## What Corinium Capital buys

- Established businesses in the United Kingdom with long standing clients and recurring income
- Professional services, asset and facilities management, compliance services and software. The sector matters less than the shape: the work is essential, the clients stay for years, and the question of what comes next is still open
- Sector flexible, with a preference for essential, often regulated B2B services where the work is process heavy and clients rarely switch
- Examples include professional services, property and asset management, compliance services and vertical software
- Profitable and stable, with a good team

## How long Corinium Capital holds

Corinium Capital is not a fund with a five year clock. It buys to keep, and builds groups of similar firms that are stronger together.

## Where Corinium Capital tends to be useful

- [Succession](https://www.coriniumcapital.co.uk/succession/): the owner is ready to hand it on and there is nobody inside the business ready to take over
- [Alternative to private equity](https://www.coriniumcapital.co.uk/alternative-to-private-equity/): the owner has a private equity offer, or expects one, and is not sure it is the right home
- [EOT and MBO alternative](https://www.coriniumcapital.co.uk/eot-and-mbo-alternative/): the owner is looking at an employee ownership trust or a management buyout and wants to know what else is on the table
- [Asset and facilities management](https://www.coriniumcapital.co.uk/asset-management/): contract based businesses looking after infrastructure, plant, equipment or facilities for other people
- [Technology and your team](https://www.coriniumcapital.co.uk/technology-and-ai/): what modernising the business means for the people in it
- [Software businesses](https://www.coriniumcapital.co.uk/software-businesses/): software that customers depend on, where the owner is working out what happens to it next
- [Venture backed software](https://www.coriniumcapital.co.uk/venture-backed-software/): a real business that is not going to be the outcome the cap table was built for

## Investment criteria

- Characteristics: recurring or repeat income, long client relationships, low client turnover, and an owner planning to retire or step back in the next few years
- Size: profitable and stable, with enough scale to support a management team rather than depending on the owner for every decision. Smaller firms are considered as additions to an existing group
- Sectors: sector flexible, as above
- Location: United Kingdom

## What Corinium Capital brings

- Hands on operating leadership and investment in technology
- Much of the work in these firms is still manual: reporting, compliance, reconciliations, chasing. Corinium Capital looks to automate the routine so people spend their time on clients
- Regulated firms: ownership and leadership are structured to meet the rules, and qualified professionals stay in charge of professional work

## What happens after completion

- Hands on from completion, working with the team until the business is running well under new ownership
- Robin Smith stays on to run the business after that, rather than handing it to a deal team
- One decision maker and no investment committee
- The business keeps trading and the team keeps building
- The founder chooses a clean handover or continued involvement, agreed up front

## How an acquisition is funded

Corinium Capital raises funds for each acquisition individually, rather than investing from a committed fund. Each deal is matched to investors suited to that business and to the ownership plan for it, rather than squeezed into a mandate agreed years earlier, and there is no fund clock obliging a sale by a given date.

For a potential transaction, Corinium Capital would go to its own network of investors and lenders for the partners best suited to that business and to the proposed ownership plan, and any offer would state its financing conditions clearly. Before asking a seller for exclusivity it would explain which funding discussions remain preliminary, what evidence of investor support exists, and what approvals and diligence are still required. Completion depends on securing the necessary funding.

## Typical process

1. An initial conversation to understand the business, what the founder wants from a sale, and whether Corinium Capital is the right buyer
2. Information sharing under NDA
3. An indicative offer covering valuation, structure, timeline, and the financing conditions attached to it
4. Focused diligence, run to a plan agreed up front
5. Completion, and the handover the founder chose

## Robin Smith, Founder

- Over twenty years running and scaling technology businesses across the UK, EMEA and the Americas, in C level and senior leadership roles with full profit and loss responsibility, from early stage companies through to businesses above £200M in revenue
- COO of a private equity backed software group, leading diligence and integration on four acquisitions
- First European hire at a cloud data company, and worked through being acquired by one of the world's largest technology companies, seeing both sides of the acquisition negotiating table
- Has designed, built and led teams in the UK, Europe and North America

## Related

- [Corinium Advisory](https://coriniumadvisory.co.uk/) is the advisory arm of Corinium Capital

## Contact

- Contact details are on the homepage at https://www.coriniumcapital.co.uk/#contact
- Registered office: Unit 9, Cirencester Office Park, Tetbury Road, Cirencester, GL7 6JJ