Latitude Group Ltd (United Kingdom) - Dec 2007

unquote
01 December 2007

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Vitruvian Partners has backed the £55m management buyout of Latitude Group Ltd, an internet search engine marketing company. The deal involved the founders of Latitude reducing their stake in the business and Vitruvian acquiring a majority shareholding. As part of the transaction, Vitruvian has provided investment to fund a rapid growth programme. Ernst & Young ran a competitive process to facilitate the buyout. The company will look to continue its rapid organic growth, which has seen it increase revenues from £500,000 in 2002 to £31m in 2006, and to make acquisitions. It will look to new geographic markets and to diversification into other digital marketing products, including social media and display advertising, to fuel future growth. The deal, which completed in December 2007 represents the first for Vitruvian Partners, a new middle-market buyout fund that will target opportunities in the UK and Northern Europe and is understood to be raising a E1bn fund, was established in August 2006 by former Apax manager Toby Wyles along with two other former Apax partners and executives from BC Partners and Bridgepoint.

Company

Latitude was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in London with an office in Warrington, Cheshire. It offers pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimisation services to clients to obtain and retain top search engine rankings. It is the largest agency of its type in the UK and the third-largest in the world. Its clients include Kwik-Fit, William Hill, Tesco Finance, Alliance & Leicester and Bank of Ireland. In 2006, it generated revenues of £31m and it employs more than 100 staff.

People

Ian Riley led the deal for Vitruvian Partners. Dylan Thwaites is the CEO of Latitude. In 2006, he was awarded the Ernst & Young Technology and Communications Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Advisers

Equity - Dickson Minto, Peter Uri (Legal)Management - Ernst & Young, Elaine O'Donnell (Corporate Finance)Management - Osborne Clarke, Mathias Loertscher, Simon Smith, Tina Lai (Legal)

Sourced from: UK & Ireland unquote" 362 (Feb 2008)