Yorkshire quoted fund makes first investment
A FUND launched by a group of Yorkshire entrepreneurs and advisers has completed its first investment in a business that offers hotel discounts.
NJD Capital, which raised £1m when it began trading on the junior PLUS market in October, has taken a 33% stake in Repeated Speech, which acquired Chester-based Travel Offers from administrators KPMG last week.
Travel Offers has two databases of hotels which consumers can subscribe to for an annual fee, in order to benefit from discounted room rates at any one of 320 hotels listed in the UK and Ireland.
For an annual fee of £34.95 customers who subscribe to the main directory database receive access to free hotel accommodation (provided they spend a prescribed amount on dinner and breakfast). Subscribers of the select directory pay £33.50 to receive up to 50% discount on bed and breakfast rates.
There are currently approximately 12,000 card holders, the details of which have been acquired in the acquisition and Repeated Speech will also acquire the domain name – www.travel-offers.co.uk.
The acquisition is for a cash payment of £3,333 and two loans by NJD to Repeated Speech.
The first loan of £20,000 is unsecured and interest accrues at a rate of 10% per annum while the second of £26,667 is also unsecured and interest accrues at a rate of 6% per annum.
Both Loans are repayable on demand, but in the event that the 10% loan is not repaid within 18 months, NJD can exercise a warrant over 12% of the issued share capital of Repeated Speech.
NJD and management were advised by the Manchester office of Sterling Corporate Finance and Schofield Sweeney in Leeds provided legal advice.
NJD Capital was launched to make debt and equity investments in struggling businesses or those undergoing buyouts or buy-ins.
NJD Capital’s managing director is Jonathan Smith, founding partner of Sterling Corporate Finance in Leeds, its chairman is Duncan Syers, the former finance director of Town Centre Securities and the finance director is Mr Smith’s fellow Sterling Corporate Finance partner Nick Exley.
NJD’s list of shareholders reads like a who’s who of the Leeds advisory community and include Jonathan Jones of Hammonds; Chris Schofield of Schofield Sweeney; Paul Fox, Simon Lloyd and Steve Jones of property firm Fox Lloyd Jones; Paul Lawrence and Dominic Scoffield, the founders of financial group Lawrence Scoffield; and Peter Jones, managing director of Yorkshire Investment Group.
NJD raised £898,634 after costs on the PLUS market and because the shareholders have invested money from their pension funds, they needed to do it through a quoted vehicle.
NJD plans to build investments in a portfolio of at least 10 companies in a wide range of sectors and it plans to invest no more than 15% of its net assets into any one business.
