Dunedin the UK mid-market private equity firm has provided acquisition funding to support the ongoing buy and build strategy of CitySprint the UK’s leading SameDay distribution network. The deal sees Dunedin again employ its trademark DebtBridge product which ensures deliverability and certainty of debt funding, and is Dunedin’s second deal in five months from its £250 million fund following the management buyout of Weldex.
CitySprint is the UK’s market leader in the same day delivery sector with a national network of 31 service centres. Turnover has grown through the recession from £46million in 2007 to a forecast £61million year ended December 2010.
The business splits its activities into key services of same day courier, same day logistics and International and UK overnight courier to a number of different sectors, including healthcare, online retail fulfillment and parts fulfillment such as outsourced supply chain services for engineering and servicing companies, including delivery of parts and stock forwarding.
Shaun Middleton, managing director, new investment at Dunedin comments: “CitySprint is the market leading business in the same day courier segment, with a highly scalable business model and an experienced, capable management team that has delivered impressive growth in recent years.”
Nicol Fraser, director at Dunedin who will join the Board of CitySprint adds: “We will work in partnership with the management team to deliver continued growth in the courier and logistics sectors. The market for non-document delivery is attractive, given that it is fragmented but consolidating and has high growth segments, such as healthcare, parts logistics and retail fulfilment.”
Patrick Gallagher, Chief Executive of CitySprint and Gerard Keenan Finance Director will continue to run the business. Patrick Gallagher commented: “We are delighted to have Dunedin as our equity partner going forwards. The Dunedin team quickly got to grips with the fundamental drivers of our business and worked extremely hard to complete this deal. They will make a strong financial partner providing us with further opportunities to grow faster and capitalise quicker on our hard earned sector dominance, whilst ensuring the services and products we provide remain both innovative and relevant to our customer needs.
“This deal does not signal any significant change to how we run the business; it provides us with further opportunities to strengthen through investment both our service offerings and national coverage.”
Steve Currie, partner at Catalyst Corporate Finance, introduced Dunedin to the management team. He states: “Dunedin’s deliverability and the vision they share with the management team for the future growth of the business make them a very strong partnership.”
Working on the transaction for Dunedin were Shaun Middleton, Nicol Fraser, Oliver Bevan and Nicholas Hoare.
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