Norton Motorcycles (UK) Limited (“Norton”) is one the UK’s leading motorcycle design and manufacturers with a heritage spanning over 120 years.
Norton was in breach of its banking covenants with Metro Bank and following a relationship breakdown the business was placed into Administration. Joint Administrators from BDO were appointed in January 2020.
BDO’s Special Situations M&A Team were introduced by the Joint Administrators to run an accelerated M&A process seeking to maximise realisations to creditors and achieve the statutory purpose of the Administration.
The team had to very quickly prepare the asset for sale given the lack of planning time available prior to the appointment of Administrators. Norton attracted a significant amount of interest when the news broke. Given the high profile nature of the brand, there was a high level of interest in the process. BDO were in receipt of c.330 expressions of interest from a range of international buyers.
There were a number of transaction challenges to be overcome. The main challenge of the transaction was to deliver the brand and intellectual property which sat outside the companies in administration. BDO worked closely with the incumbent management, lawyers and intellectual property advisers to deliver the transaction.
A transaction was executed to TVS Motor Company, a listed Indian business for £16m. The transaction saw the transfer of the business and assets, along with all employees.
The transaction will result in a material return to Norton’s unsecured creditors with a full repayment to the secured creditor Metro Bank which is an exceptional outcome in challenging circumstances.