OLD INFO28 Jul 2017 14:47
A specialist turnaround fund has built up a 25% stake in Dublin-based Escher Group, a quoted provider of technology to post offices, after senior management offloaded shares in the company.
The Hanover Active Equity Fund recently spent £4.6m (€5.2m) buying 2.3m shares in Escher, almost doubling its stake in the London-quoted company. The UK fund, headed by former banker Matthew Peacock, describes itself as a specialist in “active interventions” in small and mid-cap public companies, in order to “unlock or unblock shareholder value creation”.
Hanover scooped up the shares after Escher president and chief executive Liam Church and chief commercial officer Fionnuala Higgins both sold off more than half their shares in the company. Church and Higgins led a management buyout of the business from its US parent in 2007 and its flotation in 2011.
Stock market filings show the executives both sold 910,000 shares for £1.85 each on June 23, yielding almost £1.7m apiece. Church and Higgins previously sold 255,000 Escher shares each at a share price of £1.45 in April, netting almost £370,000 each.
After the share sales, Church and Higgins each own just under 4.8% of the company. London-based Hanover now has a 25.4% stake in Escher.
Hanover has a track record of buying or turning around quoted companies. It is in the process of buying Kalibrate Technologies, an AIM-listed provider of software and services to the fuel industry in the UK, for £29m. Last year, it took over Hydro International, a British supplier of water-treatment products, in a deal that valued the business at £28m. Before making that buyout offer, Hanover owned 17.7% of Hydro International.
The other big shareholders in Escher include the Business Growth Fund, a UK government-backed funder, which has a 14.7% shareholding. Livingbridge VC, a private equity group, owns 7.1% of the company.
Escher’s point-of-sale technology is used by postal organisations in 35 countries, including An Post. It had revenues of $22.4m (€20m) last year and made $2.7m pre-tax profit. The company said last month it had agreed a contract to provide its mobile point-of-service system for a “large-scale postal organisation” but did not disclose financial details.
Escher was backed by well-known Irish business figures, including the Smurfit family, but those links have been largely severed. Accountant Bernard Somers stepped down as chairman of the company a year ago, and non-executive directors Michael Smurfit Jr and John Quinn left the board in August 2016.
Sign In
Follow the stocks
