News and Press
TLT advises ECT Group on major restructuring

Top 100 law firm TLT has advised ECT Group, one of the UK's leading social enterprises and until recently one of the top 10 operators in the municipal waste recycling market, on a major restructuring, returning it to its original focus on community and public transport services. 

A team of corporate finance and restructuring experts from TLT advised ECT Group on all three phases of the restructuring including the refinancing of the business, the share sale of the recycling division and the share sale of its rail business. The 24 companies in the Group turning over more than £70million and employing 1,100 have been reduced to just eight, focused solely on transport.

The £15.5 million sale of £47 million turnover business ECT Recycling to AIM listed maintenance services contractor May Gurney and the share sale of ECT's rail business to a subsidiary of Iowa Pacific Holdings, LLC, an American rail operator for an undisclosed sum, will allow ECT Group to concentrate on its original Bus & Transport business.

ECT Recycling is well known throughout Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath & North East Somerset for its kerb-side collections and commercial recycling. It recently became the long term contractor for the innovative Somerset Waste Partnership of Mendip, Sedgemoor, South Somerset and West Somerset District Councils, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Somerset County Council, which is already achieving the country's highest recycling rate.

The rail businesses included various rail engineering and rolling stock businesses and two heritage lines, including Dartmoor Railway in the South West.

The ECT Group, which is still owned by the Ealing Community Transport charity, will now expand its community transport services beyond its existing operations in West London, Milton Keynes and Cheshire and has recently been awarded an Olympic Delivery Authority contract together with Hackney Community Transport.

Anna Whitty, the new Chief Executive of the ECT Group commented, "From community transport to mainstream bus services, ECT Group will continue to put our passengers first. We look forward to concentrating on our core business – passenger transport – building on the successful expansion of our services up and down the country and our new joint venture with Hackney CT, providing transport for construction workers on behalf of the Olympic Delivery Authority. It was an exceptionally challenging task and TLT were enormously supportive and added value at every twist and turn."

The 10-strong TLT team was led by partner and corporate restructuring lawyer Robin Staunton and involved specialists in corporate finance, banking, employment, pensions, real estate, tax, and restructuring. Robin Staunton said, "It was great to have the opportunity to work with the ECT Group, one of the UK's leading social enterprises, and to successfully re-focus the business. An increasing number of companies have encountered serious structural problems - in this case a disastrous diversification - but aren't aware of the positive steps that we can help them take to restore their business to health."

TLT was named Corporate Law Firm of the Year in the 2007 South West Deal Awards. TLT's 20-strong specialist corporate finance team, which includes independently-recognised experts, advises FTSE listed companies and other leading national and international organisations on the full range of listing, transactional, banking and restructuring work.

TLT's corporate finance practice is supported by the largest and arguably the leading corporate recovery and insolvency team in the South West (tier 1 in Chambers UK, an independent guide to the legal market). The partner-led team is highly experienced and rapidly growing, recently benefitting from the appointment of partner Peter Carney from Burges Salmon where he was formerly a Partner and Head of the Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency team.

Lead advisory to the ECT Group was conducted by Grant Thornton in Crawley, while the interim management team was provided by Ashton Penny.