Fleet management firm to drive growth with private equity investment
Worcestershire-headquartered fleet management firm SMH Fleet Solutions is gearing up to expand its footprint across the UK after securing investment from private equity firm LDC.
LDC has completed a minority investment in the vehicle management and logistics support specialist with acquisition facilities provided by HSBC.
SMH Fleet Solutions provides a full-suite of fleet management services including delivery, preparation, refurbishment, and remarketing of vehicles to a broad range of blue chip automotive manufacturers, rental and leasing specialists.
Achieving record revenues of over £42m in its latest financial year to December 2017, the investment will enable SMH Fleet Solutions to further expand with new sites across the UK, and grow its service proposition through an ongoing buy and build strategy, following the successful acquisition of vehicle remarketing firm CD Auction Group last year.
LDC is backing the existing management team, led by managing director Martin McAuley, finance director Andy Baxter and commercial director Simon Withey.
The transaction was led by Andy Lyndon, Chris Handy and Matt Newbold at LDC.
As part of the deal, Lyndon and Handy will join the board, alongside Andrew Cope, former CEO of leasing giant Zenith, as non-executive chairman.
McAuley said: “The business has gone from strength-to-strength in recent years, growing both organically and through targeted acquisitions, which have helped us to continually evolve our service line.”
“For us, the time is right to bring an investment partner on board, and with LDC, we are working with a team who understands our ambition for the future. We’re now focused on further expanding our footprint across the UK, and continuing to grow our offering to ensure our customers have a market-leading breadth of support to meet all of their vehicle management needs.”
Lyndon, head of LDC in the West Midlands, said: “Large corporates rely on trusted partners with a focus on outstanding service to manage the end-to-end maintenance and movement of their vehicles. SMH Fleet Solutions has a proven track-record in this space, and with an ever-increasing demand for its services, the business is in prime position to further accelerate its growth strategy.
“Martin and the team are a great example of the business leaders we are keen to support, and we look forward to working with them to build on the platform they have created to drive further growth.”
LDC was advised by Freeths, KPMG and EY Parthenon.
SMH Fleet was advised by Midlands-based Gateley and Alantra.
