Arena Gets £16.5 Million

Event infrastructure specialist The Arena Group has teamed with Sports Investment Partners and MML Capital to raise £16.5 million to step up its global expansion.

The Cambridgeshire-based company has picked itself up after last year’s collapse of former joint venture ES Group, which went into receivership with debts of about £6 million.

Apart from losing the £250,000 or so it was owed by ES Group, Arena also lost the joint venture it set up with ES to secure Commonwealth and Olympic Games contracts.

Arena has since picked up its own contracts for London 2012, and is now looking to expand into the Far East, among other regions.

Sports investor SIP and growth capital investor MML Capital will both take a significant minority holding in Arena and supply some of the directors of the new board.

“It gives us great flexibility at a time when we are looking to expand beyond our current bases in the UK, Portugal, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Dubai to reach excellent new opportunities in the Far East,” said Arena chief exec Greg Lawless.