Hill Dickinson Liverpool team acts on JLA sale to Cinven

The Liverpool office of commercial law firm Hill Dickinson has acted for the management team of major servicing solutions provider JLA on its sale, for an undisclosed sum, from Hg, the manager of HgCapital Trust, to international private equity house Cinven.

JLA, headquartered in Ripponden, West Yorkshire, was founded in 1973 and currently works with more than 25,000 SME customers.

It provides services in the commercial laundry, catering, heating and fire safety markets, and employs 900 staff, including around 300 engineers.

Hill Dickinson partner and national head of corporate, Craig Scott, and corporate partner, Matt Noon, advised the management team shareholders on the equity investment and sale terms of the deal with corporate finance advice provided to the management team by Stuart Warriner and Mark Smith at GCA Altium.

The firm acted on the transaction alongside Clifford Chance and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, who provided legal advice for Cinven and Hg, respectively, and Baird who provided corporate finance advice to the sellers.

The sale of JLA generates Hg a gross internal rate of return of 26% and a return to the Hg6 Fund of 4.9 times original cost.

Since 2010, JLA has completed 16 bolt-on acquisitions.

It bought fire safety company Fire Bright Solutions earlier this year and acquired student laundry services provider Washstation in May 2017.

Stephen Baxter, chief executive of JLA, said: “Our focus as a company is on investing in innovative product offerings and expanding our business through both organic growth and acquisitions.

“We are delighted that Cinven is investing in JLA to support the next phase of our growth.”

He added: “The Cinven team has significant experience of investing in and building businesses in the UK and internationally and I am certain they will be instrumental in our future successes.”

Thorsten Toepfer and Joris Van Gool, of Hg, added: “JLA has been a strong performing business, displayed by its 25 year-on-year unbroken growth track record.

“Hg has supported management to enable this growth during our eight-year investment period, including a variety of operational projects covering new product development, digital marketing and acquisitions.”

Cinven’s existing investments in the UK include consumer finance company NewDay, acquired in January 2017, and footwear and accessories retailer Kurt Geiger, acquired in January 2016.

Rory Neeson, partner at Cinven, said: “Under the leadership of its strong management team, JLA is a well-run, defensive business with a diversified and loyal customer base.

“We believe JLA has an excellent platform to support its further growth ambitions, including its national engineering platform and sales and marketing capabilities.

“Cinven’s strategy is to invest in JLA to support the group’s organic growth – both in its existing core products of laundry and catering solutions and in new areas, including heating and fire safety.

“We also see a great opportunity for continued growth through buy and build.”