Marlowe acquires British auditing and consultancy service

Marlowe will pay £25m in cash for William Martin, mostly funded from its existing resources and revolving credit facility. A further £1.5m will be satisfied through the issue of 359,454 ordinary shares.

A further deferred cash consideration in the range of £3.5m to £7m will also be payable, dependent on the business' EBITDA performance in the financial year prior to the exercise of a put and call mechanism.

Elsewhere, Marlowe announced its intention to raise gross proceeds of £7m through the issue of 1.7m new ordinary shares at 410p per share, a premium of roughly 2.2% to their closing price on Thursday.

Chief executive Alex Dacre, said: "The acquisition of William Martin significantly accelerates our strategy of providing our customers with a comprehensive one-stop approach to their health and safety and regulatory compliance needs."

"William Martin is a market leader which shares a similar channel to market with our existing businesses and benefits from strong relationships with customers who place a high value on the consultancy and software services."

As of 0950 GMT, Marlowe shares had picked up 1.50% to 407p.