Investors exit Trainline in £285m placing

Katharine Hidalgo
20 September 2019

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KKR, Index Ventures, Ares, and Alven Capital have sold shares worth ТЃ285m in an accelerated bookbuild for train ticket website Trainline.

The investors sold 65,500,000 shares to institutional investors at 435 pence per share, representing 50% of the shares of each investor.

In accordance with the lock-up agreement, KKR will continue to hold 12.4% of Trainline, with the other shareholders holding approximately 1.2% of shares.

The company announced its intention to float in May 2019. At the time of publication, the company was trading at 442 pence per share, giving the company a market capitalisation of £2.12bn.

The business generated adjusted EBITDA of £53m from revenues of £210m in its most recent financial year.

JP Morgan Securities, Morgan Stanley & Co International and KKR Capital Markets acted as joint bookrunners.

Previous funding
Exponent Private Equity bought Trainline in a £163m management buyout in 2006 from a consortium of shareholders including Virgin, Stagecoach and National Express. Barclays arranged the senior and mezzanine debt package for the deal, according to Unquote Data.

The following year, Trainline acquired Advanced Smartcard Technologies in a take-private that valued the business at £18.7m. In September 2013, the company secured a £190m refinancing, which also saw Exponent make a partial exit.

KKR acquired the company in a deal valuing it at £500m in 2015.

In 2016, Trainline acquired France-based Captain Train. Captain Train was previously backed by Alven Capital, CM-CIC Capital Privé and Index Ventures, and all three reinvested a portion of their proceeds into Trainline as part of the deal.

Company
The London-headquartered rail and coach ticketing company consists of three divisions: UK consumer, which sells coach and train tickets for UK travel; international, which sells coach and train tickets for European travel; and Trainline for business; which offers rail and coach booking services for SMEs, corporates and travel management companies, in addition to providing online e-commerce platforms for UK rail operators. It has additional offices in Paris and Edinburgh, and has a total headcount of around 600.