ISIS Flying High on Reed & Mackay Exit
April 2011
Livingstone Partners has advised the shareholders of Reed & Mackay Holdings Limited (‘Reed & Mackay’) on the sale of the business in a secondary buy-out backed by ECI Partners (‘ECI’). Existing private equity investor ISIS Equity Partners (‘ISIS’) has also rolled part of its sale proceeds into Reed & Mackay. The investment from ECI and ISIS will allow Reed & Mackay, the leading provider of strategic business travel management services, to continue to grow the high quality and value added services that it delivers to clients.
London-based Reed & Mackay was established in 1962 as a travel agent providing both business and leisure travel services. In 1988, it re-branded as a corporate travel management company specialising in providing high quality services to a client base predominantly based in the City of London.
ISIS originally invested £4.87m on behalf of the Baronsmead VCTs in 2005 in return for a significant minority stake, when Chief Executive Richard Boardman was seeking an investment partner to help him and the team take the business to the next level of growth. This transaction enables the Baronsmead VCTs to exit in full, and sees ISIS investing alongside ECI through ISIS IV LP, thereby maintaining an investment and involvement in this high growth company.
The exit yields a cash multiple of 4.8x and an IRR of more than 35% to the Baronsmead VCTs.
Andy Hibbert, MD of Reed & Mackay, commented: “We are delighted to have ECI co-investing with ISIS. They share the vision of preserving our culture which is key to our success, whilst supporting us in our development of products and services that will provide more value to our existing and future clients.”
Pete Clarke, Investment Director at ISIS, added “Reed & Mackay has proven to be a great investment in a high quality business, with a first rate team throughout the organisation. The business has grown significantly since our investment in 2005. It was crucial for us all to understand that the culture of the business has been critical to the delivery of outstanding service and value to its clients. As the business has grown we have worked hard to ensure that the family business we invested in has become a more professional business but nonetheless retain those family values which are at the heart of service excellence.”
James Lever, Partner at Livingstone Partners, said: “We are delighted to have completed this transaction, which has generated a fantastic return for ISIS’s VCT clients. We had a significant amount of interest in the business but have found a great partner for Reed & Mackay in ECI.”
Christopher Jones, Director at Livingstone Partners, added: “Reed & Mackay has a strongly differentiated offering based on unrivalled staff expertise and market-leading technology. As a leader in its marketplace we were always confident that Reed & Mackay would generate strong interest from institutional investors. This was borne out in the process which was highly competitive, and demonstrates the level of appetite that exists in the private equity community for the highest quality assets.”
For further information contact:
James Lever
T: +44 20 7484 4711
E: lever@livingstonepartners.co.uk
Christopher Jones
T: +44 20 7484 4724
E: jones@livingstonepartners.co.uk
Alex John
T: +44 20 7484 4712
E: john@livingstonepartners.co.uk
