NB Real Estate
Deal Summary
Catalyst advised the shareholders of NB Real Estate on its sale to Capita Plc for £20 million.
NB Real Estate is one of the largest outsourced commercial property services managers in the UK. The business provides services and advice to public and private sector clients owning or occupying property, in particular, fund management organisations, property investors, charities and large corporate owner occupiers such as the major high street banks and retailers.
NB Real Estate has a global reach and is the leading European partner of ONCOR International, a worldwide real estate organisation. The company was voted one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in the 2009 Sunday Times List.
Capita Plc is a FTSE 100 company which specialises in business process outsourcing. It operates in over eight key market sectors which are local government, central government, education, transport, health, life and pensions, insurance, and other private sector organisations (including financial services).
What difference did we make?
Following an aborted sales process in 2004 under another advisor, Catalyst was appointed by the Board to advise on the optimum strategy to grow and realise shareholder value.
Catalyst worked with the Board to develop a business plan that focussed on the key service offerings that would enhance shareholder value over the medium term. This involved a significant corporate reorganisation and the streamlining of the business to focus on the specialist services where the business had market leading positions.
Having successfully repositioned the business, the key challenge was to maximise shareholder value on the sale of the business. The business had 50 shareholders and optionholders that had previously experienced a high profile aborted sale to a competitor.
The strategy that we adopted was to identify an acquirer who was seeking to enter the sector and correspondingly we were able to achieve a strategic valuation whilst preserving confidentiality. Unlike the previous sales process, the deal obtained 100% support from all the external and internal shareholders.
