Bowmark sells Nexus to Phoenix in £142m deal

Greg Gille
31 July 2018

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Bowmark Capital has sold B2B vehicle rental business Nexus Vehicle Rental to Phoenix Equity Partners in a ТЃ142m EV deal.

Bowmark stated it generated a return of more than 3x cost following the exit. The GP had backed the business in late 2015, taking over from Livingbridge.

The deal is the seventh investment for Phoenix's 2016-vintage fund, which closed on £415m in mid-2017. The fund continues Phoenix's investment strategy of targeting small and medium-sized UK companies with enterprise values of between £30-150m.

Ares provided debt of an undisclosed amount to finance the acquisition by Phoenix. The current management team, led by CEO David Brennan, managind director John Ellis and CFO Ian Cherry, will reinvest in the deal.

Phoenix secured a majority stake in the deal. The GP expects Nexus to continue increasing its footprint in the corporate market and further develop its technology platform.

No further financial details were disclosed. Bowmark declined to comment further on the exit.

Previous funding
Bowmark acquired a majority stake in the British vehicle rental management provider, together with management, in a £51m SBO from Livingbridge at the end of 2015. For Livingbridge, the exit delivered a money multiple return of 4.5x at an IRR of 26%. Livingbridge first invested in Nexus in 2008 in a £9.5m deal, acquiring the business from its founder.

According to Bowmark, Nexus has since then grown its share of the corporate market and launched a new service in the heavy goods vehicle sector. The GP also claims that Nexus has generated strong revenue growth and more than doubled its profits during the holding period – Unquote understands that EBITDA at the time of the 2015 transaction was in the region of £5m, although Bowmark and Phoenix declined to disclose more recent financials for Nexus.

Company
Founded in Leeds in 1999, Nexus connects vehicle rental companies with corporate customers via its online booking and rental management system, Iris. The company states it provides its 1,000 customers with access to 550,000 vehicles sourced from 220 rental companies.

People
Phoenix Equity Partners – Tim Dunn (partner).
Bowmark Capital – Julian Masters (managing partner).

Advisers
Acquirer – GCA Altium (corporate finance); Travers Smith (legal); EY (undisclosed); PwC (undisclosed).
Debt – Dechert (legal).