Waypoint Partners is delighted to have advised Headland, the London-based agency specialising in financial and corporate reputation, public affairs and campaigning, on securing a minority investment from LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group.  

Headland has grown substantially since 2012. The business supported its clients through the pandemic in 2020 and increased revenues by 20%. Today, the company employs 117 people and its clients include Accenture, ASOS, Danone, eBay, Future, Just Eat Takeaway.com, PepsiCo, Pret, Saga, Three UK, TikTok, UBS, Versus Arthritis and Watches of Switzerland.  

As an investment partner, LDC will enable Headland to further broaden and deepen its consultancy capabilities, fueling the company’s ambitions to advise a range of clients on complex communications matters. 

Dan Mines, Headland Managing Partner, said: “We have had an incredible nine years at Headland, working with fantastic clients and attracting great people. Waypoint has been invaluable in helping us to identify an investment partner with the right experience and expertise to support our future development. The team’s judgement, investment knowledge and collaborative approach ensured we made the best decision for our business. They took time to understand how we work and our opportunity so that we could create a partnership capable of working on every level for the whole Headland team. Today marks the start of a new, exciting adventure for our agency. Waypoint has been instrumental in setting us on the path to the next phase of growth.”

Businesses today are under unprecedented public scrutiny, together with significant political, economic and social pressure, only exacerbated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. This has only highlighted the need for increasingly collaborative and connected thinking in the Boardroom to tackle these reputational challenges. Headland’s ability to naturally and impactfully combine specialist expertise in financial PR, corporate PR and public affairs has made it a truly disruptive market force, hired by some of the world’s most prominent brands. It was important that any deal preserved Headland’s agility and speed, evolving alongside the reputational needs of its clients – as well as its unique culture, that has been key to its success. 

For disruptive businesses like Headland, whose vision is to continue building something unique in the market, private equity investment can act as an enabler and accelerator, helping drive growth, add capabilities at speed, and provide the financial firepower to acquire and retain the very best quality talent. 

We were able to draw on our deep understanding of the communications sector, along with expertise in private equity transactions and working thoughtfully with leadership teams seeking to unlock transformational growth to deliver on our brief. 

Contact 

If you have any questions or would like to discuss the deal in more detail, please contact Matt Lacey (matt@waypointpartners.co.uk) or Jim Houghton (jim@waypointpartners.co.uk).