Press Releases
Acquisition of Merchant Ventures, Orbis Capital's parent company, by Excalibur
London, April 2008
Merchant Ventures, the parent company of Orbis Capital, has been acquired to create Excalibur, a new international investment house specialising in medical sciences, launched last week. Excalibur has been founded by Professor Sir Christopher Evans and is a major new development of the original Merlin Biosciences business.
Merchant Ventures is a diversified financial services group comprising Orbis Capital, Merchant Ventures Investments and WFM, an independent private equity and venture capital fund management company.
Excalibur focuses on the medical sciences sector with the overall aim of building highly valuable and profitable companies and achieving significant returns at low risk for investors
The new venture will build on the successful investment strategy of Merlin’s Fund III which has focused more broadly on healthcare and medical science investments and is already delivering significant returns to investors with five more years to run. The acquisition of Merchant Ventures complements the original Merlin staff with a number of highly experienced structured and corporate finance personnel who will assist investee companies in driving greater returns for their shareholders.
Key investors and stakeholders in Excalibur besides Sir Christopher include Sir Tom Hunter’s West Coast Capital, Professor Jeremy Stone, chairman of Merchant Ventures, and Lloyds TSB.
As well as supporting Excalibur group initiatives, Orbis Capital will continue to serve its current customer base and industry sectors, focusing on innovative financing structures and delivering value to its clients.
Jeremy Barnes, the current CEO of Orbis Capital will be the CEO of Excalibur.