Couchman Harrington: Niche Firm Is Big On Sportseen

1 May 2008 - Couchman Harrington Associates, the leading sports business law firm, acted for Essentially Group Limited, the AIM-listed full service sports marketing and media group (“Essentially”), on its acquisition of the UK-based stadium perimeter advertising company Sportseen Limited (“Sportseen”) for up to £9m, which was successfully completed this week. Sportseen sells high-profile perimeter advertising in both rugby and football, through deals with England's Rugby Football Union, the Scottish Rugby Union, the Welsh Rugby Union and several Premier League football clubs.

This is the third major acquisition on which Couchman Harrington's Sports Ventures Unit has advised Essentially during the last year, and involved not only advice on the acquisition itself, but also on associated equity fundraising and debt financing arrangements.

Head of Couchman Harrington’s Sports Ventures Unit, Satish Khandke, said: “Whilst we are a niche practice specialising in the sports business sector, that doesn’t mean that we don’t deliver a ‘big firm’ service to our clients. Our client was confident in our ability to negotiate with three separate City law firms who were advising the vendors, the corporate financiers and the bank on the acquisition, the equity fundraising and the debt finance respectively.”

Dwight Mighty, Chief Operating Officer of Essentially Group said: “We’ve instructed Couchman Harrington on a number of transactions now, and they continue to impress us with their ability to get the job done well. As we are a listed company it is hugely important that our lawyers can handle our transactions efficiently and effectively. Couchman Harrington obviously have an advantage over other firms when it comes to their knowledge of our business sector, and we regularly benefit from that specialist knowledge. However, we were also very happy with their work on other aspects of the transaction such as the financing where the sporting context was not particularly significant. Given our previous experiences with Couchman Harrington, we had every confidence in their ability to handle those aspects of the deal and that confidence was not misplaced.”

For further information contact:

Satish Khandke, CHA: 020 7611 9667, satish.khandke@couchmanharrington.com; or

Sam Hollis, CHA: 020 7611 9666, sam.hollis@couchmanharrington.com