3i agrees £33m sale of Lekolar

The private equity firm said in a statement it had signed a preliminary agreement with Swedish investment company Nalka Invest – a part of the IKEA group's investment subsidiaries created through the merger of Alipes and Inter IKEA.

3i said proceeds to 3i Group from the transaction would amount to approximately £33m, 17% more than the business was valued at in September 2016. According to unquote" data, the GP acquired Lekolar for around £72.3m in March 2007. The GP declined to provide further information regarding the deal's enterprise value or returns.

Providing regulatory approval and customary closing conditions are met, the deal is expected to complete in March.

Previous funding
Lekolar first came under private equity ownership in April 2004, when Swedish buyout firm Procuritas Partners tapped its Procuritas Capital Investors III to carve out Brio Lek & Lär from Swedish toy maker Brio.

Three years later, 3i purchased 100% of the share capital from Procuritas following an auction run by Handelsbanken. The deal had an estimated EV of around £72.3m.

Company
Headquartered in Osby, Lekolar is a supplier of educational and learning material, furniture, toys, stationary and arts & crafts to pre-schools and secondary schools in the Nordic region.

The company employs a staff of 280 people and has activities across Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, as well as a Shanghai purchasing office.

According to publicly available figures, Lekolar generated SEK 645.8m in revenues in the 2015 financial year, with EBIT of around SEK 46m – down from SEK 70.4m in 2014.

People
3i – David Persson (CEO).

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