TIDMHGT
RNS Number : 4311I
HgCapital Trust PLC
19 June 2017
19 June 2017
HgCapital, the Manager of HgCapital Trust plc (the "Company"),
today announces an investment in Esendex, a leading provider of
mission-critical business messaging services across Europe. This
represents a further investment into the Technology Infrastructure
cluster. On completion of the transaction, Esendex will be merged
with existing Mercury portfolio company Mobyt, which provides
similar business messaging services in Italy and France. HgCapital
will have a majority share in the combined business with the
Company owning c. 20% alongside other HgCapital clients. The terms
of this transaction were not disclosed.
HgCapital Trust plc will invest approximately GBP8.9 million in
Esendex (including GBP5.5 million in co-investment), in addition to
the GBP2.7 million of equity already invested in Mobyt. Other
institutional clients of HgCapital will invest alongside the
Company through the HgCapital Mercury Fund.
The Company, whose shares are listed on the London Stock
Exchange, gives private and institutional investors the opportunity
to participate in all HgCapital's investments.
Following completion, approximately 83% of the Mercury Fund will
have been invested. In February 2017, the Company committed GBP80
million to further investments in smaller-cap technology companies,
with the Mercury 2 Fund, over the next four to five years.
Based on the pro-forma 31 May 2017 NAV, the Company's liquid
resources available for future deployment, including all announced
transactions, are estimated to be GBP137 million (22% of the
pro-forma 31 May 2017 NAV of GBP621.2 million). In addition, the
Company has access to an GBP80 million standby facility, which is
currently undrawn. Following the transaction, the Company will
remain committed to invest approximately GBP474 million in
HgCapital deals over the next four to five years.
HgCapital announces an investment in Esendex
19 June 2017: HgCapital has today announced an investment in
Esendex, a leading provider of mission-critical business messaging
services across Europe. The investment is being made from
HgCapital's Mercury Fund which focuses on growth buyouts in the
technology sector across Europe. This represents a further
investment into the Technology Infrastructure cluster. The terms of
this transaction were not disclosed.
Founded in 2001, Esendex provides a broad portfolio of high
value business critical application-to-person messaging solutions
to SMEs and corporate customers. Esendex's product portfolio
includes SMS, voice, email, payment and IP-based products which are
delivered over rich APIs and web applications. Over 13,000
businesses in the UK, France, Spain, Ireland, Germany and Australia
rely on its services to communicate with their customers and staff.
Esendex employs over 140 people across its international offices.
Esendex was acquired by Darwin Private Equity in July 2013.
Esendex recently acquired SMSpubli, a leading supplier of
business messaging services in Spain, to further strengthen its
position in this fast-growing market.
On completion of the transaction, Esendex and SMSpubli will
combine with Mobyt SpA and SMSenvoi, existing HgCapital portfolio
companies, which provide similar business messaging solutions in
Italy and France.
The combined group will generate more than EUR75 million of
revenue across its wide portfolio of brands and territories. The
group will be led by existing Esendex CEO, Geoff Love, and
HgCapital intends to back the group to further consolidate this
fast-growing sector across Europe.
Esendex demonstrates many of the business model characteristics
that HgCapital looks for, including: a high proportion of recurring
revenues from serving a large fragmented base of SMEs, delivering
an operationally critical service and the opportunity to back a
strong management team.
David Issott, a Partner in the HgCapital Mercury team, said. "We
are delighted to be partnering with Geoff Love, as well as the
entire management team and staff at Esendex, Mobyt, SMSpubli and
SMSEnvoi.com for the next phase of their journey. We are very
excited to be backing this opportunity to create a leading European
champion in business messaging. We will immediately look to invest
further behind the group to accelerate its growth, both organically
and through further acquisitions, and we will also seek to
intensify the pace of technology and product development to support
the group's customers in their deployment of high value mission
critical use cases."
Geoff Love, CEO of Esendex, commented: "This is an exciting time
for mobile business messaging and the combination of these four
strong businesses creates a European heavyweight in
application-to-person communications. With around 200 staff and
25,000 customers, sending some 2 billion messages a year, we are
extremely well-positioned to take this fast-growing industry
forward. With HgCapital's backing for further acquisitions, as well
as continuing strong organic growth, we look forward to helping
even more businesses transform their communications with their
customers and staff."
-End-
For further details:
HgCapital
Laura Dixon +44 (0)20 7089 7888
Maitland
Tom Eckersley +44 (0)20 7379 5151
About HgCapital Trust plc
HgCapital Trust plc is an investment trust whose shares are
listed on the London Stock Exchange (ticker: HGT.L). The Company is
a client of HgCapital, giving investors exposure to a portfolio of
high-growth private companies, through a liquid vehicle. New
investments and existing portfolio companies are managed by
HgCapital, an experienced and well-resourced private equity firm
with a long-term track record of delivering superior risk-adjusted
returns for its investors. For further details, please see
www.hgcapitaltrust.com.
Neither the contents of HgCapital Trust's, HgCapital's,
Esendex's, Mobyt's, SMSEnvoi.com's, SMSpubli's or Darwin Private
Equity's websites nor the contents of any website accessible from
hyperlinks on the websites (or any other website) is incorporated
into, or forms part of, this announcement.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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