A buyout firm whose investments have included Mountain Warehouse and travel group Scott Dunn is among the suitors circling the stricken financial services group MJ Hudson.
Sky News understands that Inflexion Private Equity has approached MJ Hudson about acquiring one or more of its divisions.
The London-listed group confirmed in a stock exchange announcement on Monday that it had hired advisers from Alvarez & Marsal to field inbound interest as it seeks to repay debt and rebuild its balance sheet.
It also said it had appointed Ran Oren as its interim finance chief following the suspension of Peter Connell last month.
MJ Hudson, which floated on London’s junior stock market on the day of the 2019 general election, is an asset management consultancy which advises on issues such as sustainability and helping clients to benchmark themselves against their competitors.
In December, it announced that its shares were being suspended after being made “aware of…issues, including in relation to the reporting of historical trading of the business in relation to [fiscal year] 2022, the full impact of which is unclear”.
It also said that Mr Connell, who had already stepped down from its board, had been suspended.
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The company had warned investors in October that it was in discussions with its auditors about adjustments to its full-year figures.
It added last month that it had also appointed an external accounting advisers to assist it “in achieving the necessary clarity to enable the year end FY 2022 reporting to be completed”.
MJ Hudson’s shares were suspended at 13.13p, leaving it with a market value of just £26.7m – down two-thirds on a year earlier.
Inflexion and MJ Hudson declined to comment.