Livingbridge sells Broadstone to ICG

The acquirer is currently investing from ICG Europe Mid-Market Fund, which closed on €1bn in January 2020. The fund was 7% deployed as of June 2020.

The asset was put up for sale in June 2020 and was touted to have a purchase price of £100m, according to a report by The Mail On Sunday.

This is the seventh exit from Livingbridge's fund Livingbridge 5, which closed on £360m in April 2012. Among its other exits are tourism company Key Travel and software business Kirona.

Previous funding
Oakley Capital carved out a subsidiary of business advisory firm BDO in November 2010, acquiring 88.4% of BDO Investment Management (which would later become Broadstone) in a deal that valued the company at £14m. Equity was provided by the Oakley Capital Private Equity fund, a €350m buyout vehicle closed in 2009. BDO remained a minority shareholder following the sale.

Livingbridge acquired Broadstone in 2016.

Having recruited chair Tony Solway, and with the experienced management team led by Grant Stobart and Nick Jones as CEO and CFO respectively, Livingbridge executed a buy-and-build strategy, which included the acquisitions of Mitchell Consulting and 20-20 Trustees in 2017, followed by CS Financial Services, Thomson Dickson Consulting, BBS Consultants and Actuaries, 3HR Benefits Consultancy in 2019, and Steve Southern Trustees in 2020.

Company
Founded within BDO Stoy Hayward in 1989, Broadstone offers coordinated, end-to-end pensions, trustee, and employee benefits products and services to SMEs and corporates. It now employs 400 people in nine offices in the UK and is headquartered in London. The company generated EBITDA of £646,000 from revenues of £9.5m in the year ending on 30 June 2019.

People
Livingbridge – Xavier Woodward (partner). 

Advisers
Vendor – Deloitte (corporate finance, debt advisory, financial due diligence); LEK (commercial due diligence); Eversheds (legal).

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