The Racing Post (United Kingdom) - Oct 2007

unquote
01 October 2007

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Dublin-based private equity firm FL Partners has completed the buyout of The Racing Post from Trinity Mirror Plc for £170m. The transaction, which was supported with a debt package supplied by Anglo- Irish Bank, also includes the newspaper’s market-leading website and a number of other smaller racing and betting industry publications. The investors intend to grow the value of the company organically by mainly concentrating on improvements to the product offering and functionality of the online service. Trinity Mirror announced its intention to dispose of The Racing Post, along with up to 137 other regional titles, in December 2006 to focus on national titles and key regional titles in Scotland, Wales and Northern England. At the time, the paper was estimated to be worth more than £200m, but despite a number of interested parties, the vendors have been unable to secure an offer of this value. Earlier this month, Trinity Mirror was forced to abandon the auction sale of a collection of Midlandsbased titles, in which Exponent Private Equity was reported to be the front runner, as it had again been unable to attract bids that would realise the assets valuation.

Company

London-based The Racing Post was first published April 1986 and within a decade had become the leading title in the market. In 1998, Trinity Mirror (then Mirror Group) bought the paper and merged it with The Sporting Life. Published seven days a week, its net average issue sale for August 2007 was 72,184 copies. The website, www.racingpost.co.uk, is the market-leading racing website. The business also publishes the daily Betting Shop Display and three weekly publications: Racing and Football Outlook, Racing Post Weekender and Raceform Update, as well as the official British form book under the Raceform banner and popular racing books under the Highdown imprint.

People

Peter Crowley and Neill Hughes led the deal for FL Partners and will both join the Racing Post board.

Advisers

Equity - A&L Goodbody, (Legal)

Sourced from: UK & Ireland unquote" 355 (Oct 2007)