RJD sells Character World to Palatine for £36m

Alice Murray
08 December 2014

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Palatine Private Equity has acquired licensed bedding supplier Character World in a secondary buyout from RJD Partners, which values the company at ТЃ36m.

Palatine has invested £16m in equity and RBS has provided a debt package of £22m to support the deal.

The fresh funding will be used to expand the company internationally.

Previous funding
RJD funded the company's £20m management buyout in 2008. According to unquote" data, the deal was supported with a £10m debt package supplied by RBS.

Company
Based in Cheadle, Character World was founded in 1998 and manufactures bedding and homeware products. It works with character, gaming and music entertainment companies to acquire UK product licensing rights for a range of brands including Disney, Marvel, Lego, Nickelodeon and Warner Brothers. The company also manages other brands including Peppa Pig, Hello Kitty, Thomas The Tank Engine and One Direction.

Products are sold to major UK retailers including Next, Tesco, John Lewis and Asda.

Character World is set to generate sales of £32m for 2014. The company employs 74 people in the UK and a further eight in China.

People
Mark and Danny Schweiger are joint managing directors of Character World. Palatine partner Andy Lees and investment manager James Winterbottom have joined the company's board as non-executive directors.

Advisers
Vendor – Clearwater International, Gareth Illey (Corporate finance).
Equity – Grant Thornton (Financial due diligence); Gateley, Rebecca Grisewood (Legal); The Berkeley Partnership (Operational due diligence); The Quinn Partnership (Management due diligence); Marsh (Insurance due diligence); Baker Tilly (Tax).
Management – Dow Schofield Watts, Jon Schofield, Andy Dodd (Corporate finance); Hill Dickinson, Ian Gillis (Legal).