Lonsdale in MBO of funeral service provider Avalon

The deal was done through Nirvana Holdings and is backed by a number of institutional and family investors, including family office Souter Investments and F&C Private Equity Trust.

Zeus Capital advised Nirvana on the deal. The value of the deal was not disclosed, however Lonsdale typically backs buy-and-build strategies for businesses with turnover between £10-50m.

Avalon is the second funerary buyout in the UK in 2012. In April, Sovereign Capital sold LM Funerals for £37.5m to Duke Street Capital. The sale saw Sovereign reap 3.4x its money.

Company
Founded in 1990, Manchester-based Avalon is one of the UK's major independent pre-paid funeral plan providers. In addition to the UK, the firm has operations in Spain, where it serves the UK expatriate market. It is also gaining clients in Turkey and Cyprus.

The firm has more than 70 staff and has worked with more than 25,000 clients since its inception.

Avalon sells funeral plans through a direct sales team. Payment can be done as a lump sum up front, or through instalments.

People
Steve Chambers is the newly appointed CEO of Avalon. He was previously COO at Yell Group. Ross Finegan is partner at Lonsdale. Mike Cooper is the founder and vendor of Avalon.

Advisers
Equity – Dundas & Wilson (legal).
Company – Cobbetts (legal), Zeus Capital, Tremayne Ducker (Corporate finance).
Management – Pinsent Masons (legal).

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• Topics
• Buyouts
• UK / Ireland
• Consumer
• United Kingdom
• Pinsent Masons