Gresham sells Busy Bees for £71m

Gresham Private Equity, the UK mid market private equity specialist, today announces that it has agreed to sell Busy Bees to the Australian company ABC Learning Centres Limited in a deal worth £71m. Gresham generated a return of 3.6 times it investment.

Gresham established a debt and equity funding package totalling a potential £50m. Of this £27m had been drawn down by the time of exit.

Busy Bees has established a leading position in the UK childcare market through its two principle operating businesses, Busy Bees Nurseries and Busy Bees Childcare Vouchers.

The nursery business operates from 46 centres across the UK including wholly owned nurseries, facilities managed on behalf of public and private sector clients and facilities at shopping, sports and leisure centres.

The Busy Bees voucher business is a market leader in the high growth sector of childcare vouchers. Currently over 50,000 parents regularly use Busy Bees childcare vouchers. 168 Local Councils and over 300 NHS Trusts provide Busy Bees childcare vouchers to their staff. Corporate users include BAe Systems and Asda.

Busy Bees has around 1,500 employees and is based in Burntwood, Staffordshire.

Since Gresham’s initial investment in February 2000 and with our support, the business has expanded rapidly organically and by acquisition.

James Barbour-Smith, Director at Gresham comments: “We are delighted that ABC Learning Centres recognised Busy Bees as a very high quality business in the UK childcare market. They approached us to sell the company to them as their preferred move into the UK market. This is great testament to what the Busy Bees management team have achieved in both nurseries and childcare vouchers.”

John Woodward, Managing Director of Busy Bees adds: “This is a very exciting opportunity for Busy Bees and ABC to grow significantly in both the UK market and overseas. I would like to thank Gresham for their advice and support since they backed our team in 2000.”

Busy Bees is the fifth successful exit achieved by Gresham in the last six weeks, the other exits being Whitworths, Blue Group, Individual Restaurant Company, and Target Express.