11 May 2017
Lonsdale Capital Partners (“Lonsdale”), the private equity firm that focuses on the smaller end of the UK mid-market, has announced the completion of two bolt-on acquisitions for its portfolio companies. Global Yachting Group (“GYG”), the leading provider of services to the world’s superyacht fleet has acquired a majority stake in French superyacht finishing company ACA Marine. Avalon, the UK’s leading independent pre-paid funeral plans provider has acquired Plan My Funeral (“PMF”), to strengthen its operations in the UK. The value of the acquisitions was not disclosed.
This is the fourth and fifth bolt-on acquisition that Lonsdale has completed since January 2016 for its portfolio companies and forms part of its active buy and build strategy. It follows a busy period for Lonsdale which closed its first institutional fund at its target hard cap of £110 million in April 2016 and since then has made four principal fund investments. GYG is the parent company of Pinmar and Rolling Stock, both based in Palma, Mallorca. Its acquisition of ACA Marine, a significant player in the refit and new build market in France, the Netherlands and Italy, is part of GYG’s strategic international growth plans.
The deal brings significant experience into the group with senior management, Chris Atkinson and Nick Carter, remaining with the business to continue growing the ACA Marine brand. Including ACA Marine, GYG now has revenues of over €65m p.a. and can offer its services in all major superyacht yards across Europe and the USA. Avalon is the UK’s leading independent pre-paid funeral plans providers with operations in the UK and Spain.
Lonsdale has been a majority shareholder of Avalon for over four years and in that time sales volumes have increased fourfold under Lonsdale’s ownership. Avalon and PMF have been working commercially together for a number of months and the acquisition of PMF brings significant additional sales capabilities into the Avalon business. The combined business will have over 300 staff across the UK and mainland Europe. Lonsdale Capital commented: “These two acquisitions are in line with our buy and build strategy to create value for the core platform businesses that we back. We are always looking for acquisition opportunities for our portfolio companies in order to further accelerate the growth of these market leading businesses and to create strong returns for our investors.”
