Better Capital picks up Everest from administrators
JON Moulton’s private equity firm Better Capital has picked up the Everest double glazing business previously owned by Cheshire-based entrepreneur Brian Kennedy from administrators.
Sale Sharks co-owner Mr Kennedy sold Hertfordshire-based Everest in 2003 in a £63m deal to a management buy-out team in which he remained the major shareholder.
It subsequently sold the business to another buy-out team in 2007 in a £117.9m deal backed by private equity firm Hutton Collins, which took a minority stake in the business.
Mr Kennedy is understood to have maintained a majority stake in that deal – for which Bank of Scotland provided around £100m of debt financing.
Everest’s immediate holding company, Ever 1951, was placed into administration on March 28. Daniel Smith and David Dunckley from the London office of Grant Thornton were appointed as joint administrators.
A spokeswoman for Grant Thornton said that a deal was subsequently agreed to sell the shares of Everest Ltd to Better Capital, which picked up the business through its BECAP12 Fund.
In a brief statement issued on the same day, Better Capital said that the fund had spent a combined £25m on the acquisition, restructuring costs and on injecting working capital into the Everest business.
The last set of filed accounts for Everest Ltd for the year to October 31, 2010, show that the company had a turnover of £173m and employed an average of 938 people. by the time of the sale, employee numbers had dropped to around 810.
