Busy Bees - Childcare Company

Gresham Trust, the private equity investor, has led a £50 million funding package for Busy Bees, the Staffordshire based childcare company, to provide new childcare facilities particularly within the health sector. Royal Bank of Scotland are also providing finance for the transaction.

Busy Bees operates 28 nurseries with provision for 1,400 places and is one of the leading providers in the market. Some 15 new nurseries are planned in a first-stage expansion. Ten of the sites have been identified. There are further plans to develop the business to nearly 90 nurseries over four years.

At present there is only one day childcare place for every nine children under six years old in the UK, according to a Daycare Trust report. A 50 per cent increase in the number of nurseries is expected over the next four years to meet the rising need for places from working parents.

Lynn Woodward and Margaret Randles, directors of Busy Bees and founders of the first Busy Bees nursery, originally for their own children, said: "We are delighted. This is the solution we have been trying to structure for working parents for a number of years. The capital available for new buildings, linked to our corporate childcare voucher arrangements, will make childcare provision more readily available and affordable."

Gresham plc director Ryan Robson says, "Increasingly women in professional roles are sustaining their careers during parenthood. We believe the children's nursery sector to be a strong and profitable growth sector for investment."

John Woodward, aged 44, managing director of Busy Bees, will lead the management team in the expansion.

John Woodward says, "Working parents will have access to more affordable quality childcare and jobs will be created in new nurseries and at our Head Office in Lichfield, Staffordshire."

Ryan Robson and Paul Canning represented Gresham in the transaction and were advised by David Mowat and Lindsay Dunsmuir of Intelli Corporate Finance and Fabrizio Carpinini of Berwin Leighton. Mike Ellwood led the Royal Bank of Scotland funding. Busy Bees were advised by Russell Orme of Dibb Lupton Allsop in Birmingham.