Former private equity owner relinquishes seat on Card Factory board
THE former private equity owner of Card Factory has relinquished its seat on the board after selling 40m shares.
Charterhouse Capital Partners had bought the Wakefield-headquartered retailer for £350m in 2010 and retained more than 40% of the company when it floated in May 2014. At that stage Card Factory was valued at £766m, which has since risen to £880m.
In December Charterhouse recouped £106m when it sold 40m shares, and has earned a similar amount from its latest sales, to Invesco and Artemis Investment Managers.
Charterhouse retains 17.8% of the company, worth more than £150m, while Invesco’s stake has risen to 18.4% and Artemis now holds 11.9%.
Non-executive director Graeme Coulthard, a partner of Charterhouse Capital Partners, has resigned from the board as required by the relationship agreement with the company which set the trigger as being when Charterhouse’s interest went below 20%.
Geoff Cooper, chairman of Card Factory, said: “Graeme has been a highly supportive and effective non-executive director, both during the important period of Charterhouse’s ownership of the business, and during its early months as a quoted company.”
Mr Coulthard said: “It has been a pleasure to have worked with the talented and dedicated management team at Card Factory over the past five years. Charterhouse prides itself on backing strong management teams and Card Factory is a great example of how this strategy works.”
Card Factory continues to expand and plans to open a further 50 stores this year to take its total over 800. In its latest trading update it said revenues were up 8.1% in the 11 months to December 31 and it remains “highly cash generative”.
