Northern Edge Wins Private Equity Deal of the Year Award

We are delighted to announce that the Northern Edge-advised acquisition of Direct Line, Inc. by an investor group led by Guardian Capital Partners has won Private Equity Deal of the Year ($10 – 50 million) at the 17th Annual M&A Advisor Awards held on Tuesday, November 6th, 2018. This is the fourth time in the past three years that industry peers have recognized Northern Edge’s excellence in complex sell-side transactions across a range of sectors and deal sizes.

Bob Goldsmith, President & CEO of Northern Edge, commented:

“Delivering an attractive outcome for our clients has always been Northern Edge’s focus, and we are very pleased to again earn industry acknowledgement of our team’s accomplishments. The successful acquisition of Direct Line exemplifies the key capabilities that have solidified our position as a market leader in the sale of privately-owned companies: a well-designed and executed process and the unmatched expertise and persistence of our investment bankers.”

Led by a senior Northern Edge deal team, the winning transaction featured exhaustive research of potential buyers, creative structuring, and robust competition between strategic and financial players.

Our client, Direct Line, is a provider of network cabling, infrastructure and staffing services to data centers and other mission critical environments. Headquartered in Fremont, California, the company began over twenty years ago as a small start-up whose first client was Facebook. Direct Line has grown steadily since then, becoming an expert in managing the complexities of installing, designing, and maintaining customized data and fiber optic cabling for data centers across a wide variety of end markets.

Following the partnership with Guardian Capital Partners, a well-established private equity firm that has significant experience investing capital to fuel the growth of private businesses, Direct Line is uniquely positioned to capitalize on consumer demand for ever-increasing online content and overall data usage.

The transaction was also a finalist in two other categories:

• Information Technology Deal of The Year ($10 – $50 million)
• M&A Deal of The Year ($25 – $50 million).

The M&A Advisor, the world’s premier “think tank” and leadership organization for M&A, restructuring and financing professionals, has been honoring the leading M&A transactions, companies and dealmakers since 2002. This year, winners were selected from over 600 participating companies.