BC sells down Sabre stake

Following the transaction, BC Partners (which also owns Acuris, the parent company of Unquote) will hold a stake of around 14.5% in the company, while Sabre co-founder Angus Ball will hold a 4.3% shareholding.

The partial divestment comes six months after Sabre floated on the London stock exchange with a market cap of £575m. The IPO raised £287.5m, of which £206m was used to acquire shares owned by BC, Ball and Keith Morris.

Under BC's tenure, the business introduced a management team led by CEO Geoff Carter and chief financial officer Adam Westwood to take over from the founding owners. It also invested in product development and bolted on Binomial Group in 2014.

Barclays acted as sole global coordinator and bookrunner for the latest offering.

Previous funding
BC acquired Sabre in September 2013 in a deal understood to be valued at £240m, with capital drawn from the €6.5bn BC European Capital IX fund.

Company
Headquartered in Dorking, Surrey, Sabre was founded in 1982 and has a headcount of 150. The business distributes policies through third parties and its own brands, Go Girl, Insure2Drive and Drive Smart, with the latter accounting for 30% of gross written premiums (GWP) in 2016.

Sabre generated GWP of £197m in 2016 and reported a compound annual growth rate of 11.3% from 2006 to 2016, according to a statement issued at the time of the company's announcement of its intention to float. It generated adjusted profit after tax of £53.9m in the same year, up from £37.1m in 2015 and £48.9m in 2014.

People
Sabre Insurance Group – Geoff Carter (CEO); Patrick Snowball (chairperson).

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• Topics
• Exits
• UK / Ireland
• Financials
• United Kingdom
• BC Partners
• Partial sale