Capita drives away with £57m ParkingEye
OUTSOURCING giant Capita is buying Lancashire car park technology provider ParkingEye for £57.5m.
Based in Chorley, Lancashire, ParkingEye has around 160 employees, managing more than 830 car parks across the UK.
ParkingEye’s automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) based management system is used by clients to provide remote enforcement, management information and alerting systems.
Its customers include supermarket groups Aldi and Morrisons and property giant British Land.
The technology, which is adaptable across market sectors, is designed to ensure that car parks are used by individuals with a legitimate right to use them and allows clients to retain a fair approach to parking charges and cancellations.
Capita said ParkingEye is forecasting an operating profit of £8.1m on turnover of £25.8m in its financial year to August 31 2014.
Capita chief executive Paul Pindar said: “This acquisition will allow Capita to develop a complete and sophisticated car park management and enforcement business for new and existing clients in leisure, local government, the NHS, education and the retail industry, including Capita’s extensive customer base.
“It has synergies with our existing cash collection and payment processing business and will allow us to offer clients the benefits of a well-managed car park, creating availability for customers, citizens and patients.”
The acquisition will be satisfied in cash of £54.8m (£23.9m payable on completion and £30.9m payable up to and including February 2014) and the issue of 413,421 Capita shares.
Neil Shepherd and Chris Hardman from law firm Addleshaw Goddard and Co acted for the vendors in the deal.
According to Companies House the largest shareholders in the business were Simon Smith, 40, who owned 28% of the shares, while Brenda and David Taylor each held 21.12%.
