School's out for EAT management buy-out
July 2008
Education & Adventure Travel (EAT), the UK school travel group, has been acquired for $200m in a secondary buy-out backed by DLJ Merchant Banking Partners. EAT’s management team was advised by Simon Cope-Thompson and Christopher Jones from Livingstone Partners’ Consumer Team.This is the second private equity backed travel deal that Livingstone has completed in the last month, following the ISIS Private Equity backed buy-out of Travel Jigsaw in June where Livingstone also advised management.
EAT includes the School Travel Group and Kingswood Educational Group. STG is the second largest operator of school and student educational tours and the market leading provider of school ski trips in the UK. Kingswood is the UK’s second largest provider of curriculum-based residential and adventure activity courses. The company operates nine residential sites in the UK and France and also runs UK summer camp operator, Camp Beaumont.
Having attracted strong interest from strategic buyers and private equity investors, the management team turned to Livingstone to help guide them through the detailed stages of the sale process.
Terry Williamson, Joint-CEO of EAT said: “During a difficult and prolonged process, Livingstone’s understanding of the complexities of our transaction, together with their superb marshalling of the numerous parties involved, helped management achieve an optimum result. Livingstone understood the issues, were always available and showed enormous empathy with the entire management team.”
Paul Gilbert, Joint-CEO of EAT commented: “I cannot speak highly enough of Simon and Christopher’s combined ability to understand the complexity of the proposed arrangements and manage the variety of personalities involved, along with their professional knowledge of the current marketplace and the various parties that were introduced to us. Their expertise, support and sage advice greatly benefited the management team and much credit should rest with them for the successful completion of this transaction.”
For further information contact:
Simon Cope-Thompson
T: 00 44 20 7484 4706
E: sct@livingstonepartners.co.uk
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