THI acquires road markings specialist WJ Group

Katharine Hidalgo
14 January 2021

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Family office THI Investments has acquired a majority stake in WJ Group, a specialist road marking company.

THI is based in London and Stuttgart and makes direct investments averaging around £50-150m. Edmund Buckley, a managing director of the firm, said THI is able to offer long-term, flexible capital outside of conventional private equity timelines. It invests in the education and training sector, as well as some areas of industrial technology, with a focus on high-quality management teams.

Buckley said of investing through the pandemic: "Investors have capital that they need to put to work; there has not yet been a wave of failure of businesses and many companies have performed well during the pandemic."

The firm has been investing for the last 18 months and has five portfolio assets.

THI also has a number of other alternative fund-like investments, but operates from a broad capital base and holds investments in public markets, said Buckley. "THI has a long tradition in supplying innovative technology to the automotive industry. When the family business, Getrag, was sold, our shareholders didn't want to be purely passive financial investors, they wanted to participate directly and have an ongoing relationship with management teams and companies."

Clearwater International advised on WJ's competitive process, which received a number of offers, said Buckley. "The management team and the founder decided they wanted to find a partner that had significant operational expertise and relevant sector experience, and that was one of the reasons they chose to work with us."

The company currently has a joint venture in Belgium. "We'll look to grow that and look into expansion into other geographic areas, but for now, the majority of the company's focus will be on the UK market," said Buckley.

Buckley said of his investments: "We typically have a four- to five-year exit period. We have permanent capital so we're indifferent as to whether we hold for three or 10 years."

He said of the firm's pipeline: "We are very busy, which is not something I would have expected in April last year, but we have a lot of really high-quality opportunities to look at."

Arcmont provided a financing package to support the deal.

Company
Founded in 1987, WJ is a specialist road markings service. It has nine depots and a fleet of more than 220 vehicles, according to a statement. It employs more than 400 people and generated revenues of £67m for the year to 31 January 2020.

People
THI Investments – Edmund Buckley (managing director).
WJ Group – Wayne Johnston (group managing director).

Advisers
Vendor – Clearwater International, Paul Jones, Zack Goddard, Andrew Hatch, Courtney Walker (corporate finance); Mark Taylor, David Grassby (debt advisory).