Investec provides hybrid asset-based and cashflow financing for Symera’s CIS Security acquisition

Investec has combined asset-based lending and cashflow debt in a financing package supporting Symera Partners’ acquisition of UK security-services company CIS Security, bringing borrowing-base techniques into a private-equity-backed takeover structure.

The UK bank said its Direct Lending team provided the facilities to Symera, a private equity investor with offices in Los Angeles and London. The transaction is the first completed financing between the two firms.

Investec has not disclosed the total facility size, pricing, maturity or individual amounts allocated between the asset-based and term-debt components.

The structure is nevertheless notable because it combines two lending approaches normally driven by different parts of a borrower’s credit profile.

Asset-based lending generally determines availability by reference to eligible assets such as receivables, inventory or other collateral, applying advance rates and borrowing-base controls. Cashflow lending relies more heavily on the borrower’s earnings and debt-service capacity.

Bringing the two together can allow a sponsor to use the value embedded in a company’s operating assets while retaining longer-dated term funding for the acquisition itself. For a services company such as CIS Security, trade receivables are a potential source of collateral, although Investec has not disclosed which specific assets are included in the borrowing base.

CIS provides security, front-of-house and technology-enabled services across more than 300 public and private-sector locations in the UK. Its customers include managing agents, public bodies, commercial-property operators and other organisations responsible for high-profile or critical sites.

The acquisition financing gives Symera a funding platform that Investec says is designed to support further growth under the new ownership.

The transaction also illustrates the widening use of ABL techniques beyond conventional refinancing and turnaround situations. Sponsor-backed acquisitions can create demand for structures that maximise liquidity without requiring the entire financing package to be supported solely by EBITDA-based leverage.

For lenders, that can produce a blended credit position in which recoverable asset value supports part of the exposure while term debt participates in the company’s wider operating cash flows.
The absence of disclosed facility amounts limits comparisons with other acquisition financings, but the hybrid structure makes the transaction more relevant than a standard undisclosed private-equity loan.