Phoenix-backed Just Childcare secures £50m financing package

The financing will be provided by Ares Management and RBS, and will be used to support the company's ongoing buy-and-build strategy, Unquote understands.

Ares is currently investing from its Ares Capital Europe IV fund, which closed on €6.5bn in 2018. It was 31% deployed as of March 2019, according to Unquote Data.

Just Childcare is a Phoenix Equity Partners 2010 fund portfolio company. The firm has supported 29 bolt-ons since its acquisition in 2014. Most recently, the company bolted on Jack & Jill Nurseries and Pre-School, and St Mary's and Small World nurseries in August 2019. In May 2018, Allied Irish Bank and Phoenix Private Equity invested £12m in Just Childcare to support the nursery chain Abbeywood Tots.

Unquote understands the company has an EBITDA of around £7m. It reported revenues of £9.7m and an operating loss of £1.7m for 2017, according to publicly available documents. The company's strategic report attributed the loss to investment in the infrastructure of the business in anticipation of future growth.

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Worsley, Greater Manchester, Just Childcare is an operator of childcare centres. The company owns and operates 59 nurseries across the UK.

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• Topics
• Refinancing
• UK / Ireland
• Consumer
• United Kingdom
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Phoenix Equity Partners