Hill Dickinson advises on the sale of Barber of Sheffield

Hill Dickinson’s corporate team has advised the shareholders and management of Barber of Sheffield, Europe’s leading supplier of body art products, on its sale to RJD Partners in a secondary buy-out.

Barber was set up by husband and wife Tony and Stephanie Crane in 1990 as a medical supplies business but soon moved into the body art market. Barber now supplies a range of inks, needles, equipment, aftercare and hygiene products to over 30,000 individual accounts across 67 countries worldwide under the Barber DTS trade name. The company, which employs around 45 people in Barnsley, also provides specialist equipment and products to the medical and veterinary markets.

Managing director Richard Boston, who joined from Shop Direct in 2014, and finance director Craig Burns, formerly of Sheffield United, will head up the business going forward with Tony Crane also staying on as a director of the company under RJD Partners’ investment.

Ian Riggs, Craig Scott, Jonathan Gillow and Rhian Hughes from Hill Dickinson’s corporate team advised the management team and shareholders on the transaction. The corporate team also acted on the initial investment by PHD Equity Partners and Enterprise Ventures in 2012, which helped transform the business from a UK catalogue store into an export driven online business.

Jonathan Gillow, a partner in Hill Dickinson’s corporate team, said: “We are delighted to have acted on the transaction and very much look forward to working with management as the business continues to grow following RJD’s investment”.

Earlier this month, Hill Dickinson’s corporate team was named North West’s most active M&A advisor for the first nine months of the year as revealed in a report by Experian.

Dave Graham and Pete Barkley of Dow Schofield Watts provided corporate finance advice to the vendors.