Inflexion-backed Huws Gray buys Ridgeons

Oscar Geen
16 October 2018

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Inflexion portfolio company Huws Gray has expanded its presence to East Anglia with the acquisition of independent timber and building supplies merchant Ridgeons.

Inflexion injected fresh equity for the transaction from its minority investment fund, Inflexion Partnership Capital I, Unquote understands. The fund closed on £400m in 2014 and was 77% deployed by March 2018, according to Unquote Data.

The GP had built a relationship with the Ridgeon family several years ago and was able to introduce them to Huws Gray after its minority investment in the firm in April this year.

Huws Gray has added an additional 40 stores through the deal and increased its turnover from £180m (2017) to almost £400m (2018 projected) as a result of this acquisition, other smaller bolt-ons and organic growth.

Ridgeons generated operating profit of £5.2m from sales of £175.5m (3% margin) in 2017, while Huws Gray generated an operating profit of £25.5m from sales of £182.7m (13% margin) for the same period, according to publicly available documents.

Company
Ridgeons is a family-owned timber and building supplies merchant that was founded in 1911 and is headquartered in Cambridge. It operates 40 branches across East Anglia and employed 839 people in 2017.

People
Inflexion Private Equity – Simon Turner (managing partner); Stuart Robinson (partner).
Huws Gray – Terry Owen (CEO).
Ridgeons – Gordon Ridgeon (family director).

Advisers
Equity – Addleshaw (legal); PwC (financial due diligence; tax).