Private equity firm drives MBO of fleet management group

A commercial vehicle provider has been bought by NorthEdge Capital in a deal that is designed to drive its growth ambitions.

The private equity firm has backed the managing director of Prohire, Dave Barlow, who has led a management buyout.

He said: “The next stage of Prohire’s development will be the most exciting in our 20-year history.”

Stoke-on-Trent-based Prohire’s services include vehicle specification, procurement, funding and fleet management. It employs 70 people and has achieved sales of around £40m in the financial year which finished last month.

The funding will be used to broaden the sales function and invest into the development of the ProVision technology platform.

Manchester-based NorthEdge will also provide further capital to support the company in its buy-and-build strategy.

The most recent published accounts, for the year to March 2017, showed a pre-tax profit of £820,000 on revenues of £29.8m.

Prohire bought Sunrent in December 2016 for £5.8m, which added £7.0m to annual turnover, an office in Tunbridge Wells, and increased its fleet size to around 3,500 units.

NorthEdge director Phil Frame, who led on the investment, and investment executive Greg Holmes will join Prohire’s board.

“Prohire has grown rapidly in recent years under the leadership of Dave and the wider team and has already demonstrated its ability to acquire and integrate complementary businesses,” said Frame.

“We look forward to working closely with the team in delivering on their growth plan.”

NorthEdge was advised by DWF (Jonathan Robinson and Vicky Thomas), Dow Schofield Watts (Rob McCarthy), Teneo Consulting (Simon Bones) and PwC (David Burke).

Deloitte provided corporate finance (Andy Westbrook, Oliver McRae and Jeremy Thomas) and financial due diligence (Chris Wildsmith) advice to Prohire. Thinking Legal (Jo Bligh) provided legal advice.

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