CitySprint
Deal Summary
Catalyst advised the management team and shareholders of CitySprint on a growth capital fund-raising to support the ongoing buy and build strategy of the business.
CitySprint is the UK’s market leader in the same day delivery sector with a national network of 31 service centres. 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.
Turnover of the business has grown through the recession from £46 million in 2007 to a forecast £61 million in the year ending December 2010.
What difference did we make?
Catalyst was appointed by the shareholders of CitySprint in July 2010 to deliver a deal that created the optimum shareholder and funding structure to support the delivery of the ongoing buy and build strategy of the business.
Catalyst was selected due to our market leading knowledge in raising equity and debt finance to support the growth of privately owned, mid market businesses in the UK.
Correspondingly we were able to quickly identify a shortlist of potential funders who would want to support the opportunity and at the same time we were able to protect confidentiality by limiting the distribution of company information.
Dunedin Capital Partners were selected as the preferred equity provider and have invested for a minority stake in the business. This allowed the existing shareholders to maintain a controlling equity stake and to introduce a revised tax efficient equity structure to incentivise the other key members of the senior management team.
The key to delivering the transaction was the up front investment of time committed to the business planning process. The robustness of the business plan was the key to the delivery of the equity and debt funding and enabled the business to navigate through the rigorous due diligence process associated with a deal of this type. Therefore, the deal was delivered in a challenging economic and banking environment in line with the original deal timetable with minimal operational disruption to the business.
