Apax exits Travelex

Amy King
27 May 2014

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Apax Partners has sold its majority stake in foreign exchange firm Travelex to Bavaguthu Raghuram Shambhu Shetty, founder and CEO of UAE-based healthcare provider Health plc, and equity partners at Centurion Investments.

The buyers completed the acquisition via the holding company BRS Ventures & Holdings.

Travelex will retain its existing capital structure and will not take on additional debt to support the deal.

Centurion Investments is an investment vehicle based in Abu Dhabi, owned and controlled by UAE investor Saeed Bin Butti Al Qubaisi.

Bavaguthu Raghuram Shambhu Shetty's investment portfolio includes significant holdings across the hospitality, food and beverage and health sectors. He is founder and CEO of UAE-based healthcare provider Health plc, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and part of the FTSE-250.

Previous funding
In 2005, Apax and Standard Charter Bank (SCB) acquired a majority stake in Travelex from the company's founder and private equity firm 3i in a £1.06bn buyout. 3i retained a 6% equity stake and certain vendor loans, according to unquote" data.

The following year, Apax and SCB purchased 3i's remaining stake in the company. In 2007 Travelex disposed of its 1,070 ATMs, which were acquired by AIM-listed Cardpoint for a cash consideration of £12.9m.

In 2010, the company sold its Card Program Management operations via a $458m trade sale to MasterCard.

Company
Founded in 1976 and headquartered in London, Travelex is a foreign exchange company. It built a retail network of foreign exchange stores spanning 27 countries. Outlets are present in international airports, transport hubs, shopping malls, high streets. supermarkets and city centres.

Travelex has a network of more than 1,300 ATMs across the world and an online and mobile foreign exchange platform. The company processes exchanges for major banks, travel agencies, hotels and casinos. Travelex is also active in the remittance and payments space and travel insurance brokerage.

For the year ending December 2013, Travelex reported revenues of £695m and EBITDA of £80.1m.

People
Andrew Sillitoe is co-CEO at Apax.

Advisers
Acquirer – Standard Chartered Bank (Corporate finance); Evercore (Corporate finance); Linklaters (Legal).
Company – Goldman Sachs (Corporate finance); JP Morgan (Corporate finance); Smith Square Partners (Corporate finance); Freshfields (Legal); Berwin Leighton Paisner (Legal).
Management – Macfarlanes (Legal).
Vendor – Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Corporate finance); Barclays (Corporate finance); Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Legal); Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (Legal).