Kester invests in YouGarden MBO

Katharine Hidalgo
21 October 2019

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Kester Capital has supported the management buyout of horticultural products retailer YouGarden.

Kester has taken a majority stake in the company, while the CEO and management team have retained a minority stake.

The firm drew equity from its Kester Capital II fund. Kester invests equity cheques of £5-25m in companies with enterprise values of £10-50m. This is Kester's third deal in 12 months.

YouGarden operates its own packhouse, which was partly funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.

The company generates revenues of £17m. Debt for the deal was provided by Santander.

Previous funding
Kester provided seed funding for YouGarden in 2012.

Company
Headquartered in Lincolnshire, YouGarden sells horticultural products across a variety of channels such as Amazon, Ideal World TV Shopping, Groupon and Shop Direct. The company was founded in 2012.

People
Kester Capital – Cameron Crockett (managing partner).
YouGarden – Peter McDermott (managing director).

Advisers
Equity – RSM (corporate finance); Mazars (corporate finance); Burness Paull (legal); Tallar (legal); Drytsone Strategy Partners (commercial due diligence); Stephenson Smart (financial due diligence).