Oakley reacquires minority stake in Daisy for £39m

JosУЉ Rojo
03 August 2015

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Oakley Capital Private Equity has reacquired a minority stake in UK telecoms Daisy Group from existing shareholders for around ТЃ39m after selling a stake during the companyтs take-private in 2014.

Oakley acquired the minority stake in Daisy from Toscafund Asset Management and the company's CEO Matthew Riley, both shareholders since the IT specialist was taken off the stock exchange in 2014.

The GP financed the acquisition via its €500m second fund, as well as from Oakley Capital Investments Limited (OCIL), its AIM-listed investment arm.

OCIL provided £14.9m of the total £39m purchase price and injected an additional £14m in mezzanine financing.

Oakley's acquisition marks its return to Daisy's capital structure after less than a year. In October 2014, the business was delisted by London-headquartered Penta Capital and Toscafund, alongside company CEO Riley.

The take-private, sealed five years after Daisy's £204m listing on the London stock exchange's AIM, gave the company a £494m market capitalisation, equating to 11x EBITDA.

The transaction saw OCIL divest a 13.6% interest in the business held by its first fund for around £67m. At the time, the GP revealed the exit had generated a gross money multiple of 35x and an IRR of 71%.

Company
Founded in 2001, Daisy is a telecommunications business developing broadband, voice-over-internet protocols, phone lines, cloud and hosting systems and mobile services. The company operates via the subsidiaries Daisy Corporate Services, Daisy Wholesale, Daisy Retail, Daisy Distribution and Daisy Partner Services.

Headquartered in Nelson, Daisy claims to service 60,000 clients and posted unaudited adjusted EBITDA of £25.8m in the six months leading up to September 2014.

People
OCIL was represented by its director Peter Dubens. Matthew Riley founded Daisy and is the company's current executive chairperson.