Month: December 2010

One of Scotland’s leading independent corporate finance specialists, DC Consulting advised the owners of Braemore Property Management in the recent sale of their business to Lomond Capital. The deal, led by Harry Linklater and Chris Clark follows soon after DC’s recent expansion into the Edinburgh corporate finance market.

Braemore is a leading Edinburgh Lettings business which currently manages over 800 properties and is renowned for its client service excellence. William Frame, majority shareholder and former Chairman, will retain a consultancy role and will work closely with the Lomond team going forward.

Commenting on the deal, William Frame said: “Consolidation is well overdue in the lettings sector across the UK. Braemore will be used as a bridgehead by Lomond Capital to acquire quality property letting businesses. Their business plan in very sound and backed by a strong well proven Management Team. The Braemore team of Karel Broughton and Colette Murphy along with the entire Braemore staff will be assisting Lomond in driving through the acquisition strategy. Like all deals we had our good and bad days on the way – especially as we had not prepared the business for sale. Without the steady hands of DC Consulting’s Chris Clark and Harry Linklater, getting the transaction over the line would have been somewhat challenging.”

Lomond Capital paid an undisclosed sum for the firm and has promised similar deals are in the pipeline.
Lomond Capital chairman Roger Lane-Smith commented: “The acquisition is the first of a clearly defined strategy that will see Lomond Capital look to significantly grow its presence in Edinburgh and other major UK cities. In difficult economic times, we’re delighted to be in a position to invest in the UK economy.”

3D Diagnostic Imaging, currently quoted on the PLUS market, will transfer to AIM at the end of this month. 3D Diagnostic Imaging plc (www.3ddiagnosticimaging.com) was incorporated in the Isle of Man on 17 June 2008, and has a single wholly owned trading subsidiary, CarieScan, incorporated in Scotland and based in Dundee. 3D has conditionally raised £2.71 million (before expenses) by way of a placing of 45,248,318 shares at 6p per share with existing and new investors, giving the company a market capitalisation of £10.23 million. 3D is currently a PLUS-quoted company; subject to an EGM, trading on PLUS will cease at the close of business on 19 November and trading of the company’s shares on AIM will commence on 22 November.

3D Diagnostic Imaging was formed to acquire the assets of IDMoS, a spinout from the University of Dundee, which had been placed in administration in April 2007. 3D’s subsidiary CarieScan (www.cariescan.com) has developed and taken to market the CarieScan PRO, a hand-held battery operated device, which enables dentists to measure and monitor the effect of treatment regimes to show decay advance or regression, and optimise individual treatments for different patients.

The device was developed by IDMoS, which raised significant capital and floated on AIM, but due to the prohibitive conditions of a commercial agreement which it was unable to renegotiate was forced into administration. The funds from the placing will allow CarieScan to expand its operations and to invest, both in additional tooling to increase its manufacturing capacity, and in the process of designing down the cost of manufacturing PRO sensors. The company’s primary focus is on achieving wide-scale adoption of the PRO
by dental practitioners in the USA and in Canada, and it has already partnered with leading dental distributor, Patterson Dental, to achieve adoption in these markets, with first product having been shipped.

The 3D Group’s ultimate objective is to develop, market and commercialise a series of products based on its technology with a range of different applications, such as the early detection of osteoporosis, or of malignant melanomas, the state of health monitoring of battery systems for electric vehicles, or early detection of corrosion within building materials.