Fairpoint in fresh debt management deal
CONSUMER debt managment and legal specialist Fairpoint Group has made a fresh acquisition with a £3m swoop for a business on the south coast.
The AIM-listed Chorley company has snapped up Debt Line Topco, a provider of debt management plans, with more than 9,000 plans under its management.
The cash deal deal for the Bournemouth-based company is Fairpoint’s third debt management plan purchase this year.
In the financial year ended March 31 2014, Debt Line generated consolidated revenues of £5.1m. Profit before tax, adjusted to eliminate non-recurring items and to reflect the group’s accounting practices, was £900,000, before charging vendor loan note interest of £1.4m, and a loss before tax of £0.5m after this charge. Debt Line reported consolidated gross assets of £6.4m as at March 31 2014.
Fairpoint said it expects to incur exceptional transactional costs of £200,000 and restructuring costs of up to £1.1m associated with this acquisition in the second half of 2014.
Chief executive Chris Moat said: “We are pleased to have completed the acquisition of Debt Line, which represents further progress in line with the group’s consolidation strategy in the debt solutions market. This acquisition now brings our cases under management to almost 29,000 and, as planned, represents substantial growth over our position at the start of this year (15,688 cases under management).”
