B.p Marsh Regulatory News (BPM)

Date: 8 October 2021

B.P. Marsh & Partners Plc

("B.P. Marsh", "the Company" or "the Group")

Investee Company Update & Further Investment- Nexus Underwriting Management Limited

B.P. Marsh & Partners Plc (AIM: BPM), the specialist investor in early-stage financial services businesses, is pleased to announce that Nexus Underwriting Management Limited ("Nexus"), the independent specialty Managing General Agency ("MGA"), has successfully completed a refinancing exercise which sees £4m of loans repaid to B.P. Marsh over two years earlier than expected. Simultaneously to this refinancing, B.P. Marsh has acquired a further 2.49% shareholding in Nexus, from a founding shareholder.

1. Refinancing

Nexus has secured a new £70m banking facility from Barings LLC ("Barings"), the global investment manager. This facility will be utilised in two ways, with £50m being used to refinance existing debt and meet upcoming deferred consideration payments, with the balance available for new acquisitions.

As part of this fundraising, Nexus has repaid in full the £4m Loan Facility with B.P. Marsh, alongside the £40m Loan Facility with HPS Investment Partners LLC. The £4m Loan Facility was originally due to be repaid by 8th January 2024.

When Nexus raised these facilities with HPS and B.P. Marsh in 2017, Nexus' EBITDA was £5m, and the equity value of its business was £75m. For the 2021 financial year, Nexus is forecasting underlying EBITDA of £19m and has an internal equity value of £238m.

Since 2017, Nexus' underlying EBITDA has increased by 3.4x, and the equity value by 3.1x.

This financing provides Nexus with the opportunity to make further acquisitions and enter the next phase of its growth.

B.P. Marsh first invested in Nexus in August 2014; it has since grown from a Gross Written Premium of £55m to a projected figure of over £400m in 2021. Over the same period, Nexus has grown its EBITDA by over seven times.

Barings is an international investment management firm, with $382bn+ of Assets Under Management, over 2000 staff and offices in 16 countries.

2. Further Acquisition of Shares in Nexus

Alongside this fundraising, B.P. Marsh has acquired a further 100,000 shares in Nexus for £4m from Ian Whistondale, a founding non-management shareholder.

B.P. Marsh saw this as an opportunity to allow a founding shareholder to partially realise the value of his equity in Nexus, whilst enabling it to acquire a further 2.49% shareholding in Nexus.

Following this share purchase, the Group's fully diluted shareholding in Nexus has increased to 19.18%. B.P. Marsh is now the largest individual shareholder in Nexus, with management and employees continuing to own over 50% of the business.

Colin Thompson, Nexus Founder and Group CEO stated:-

"This debt facility provides Nexus with the ability to satisfy our long-term growth aspirations, increasing both Gross Written Premium and EBITDA via organic growth and from new acquisitions."

Dan Topping, Chief Investment Officer of the Company, commented:-

"With this successful debt raising Nexus is well set for its next phase of transformational growth, taking the business to $1billion of Gross Written Premium Income, and we are looking forward to working with them to further deliver significant equity value uplift.

"The Group first acquired a 5% in shareholding in Nexus in 2014, seeing this as a unique opportunity to structure a transaction whereby we would not only be able to increase our shareholding to our more usual percentage, but also to support and assist the management team at Nexus to grow the business significantly. As evidenced by their performance, management have achieved a tremendous amount and a considerable ongoing return for the Company."

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Notes to Editors:

B.P. Marsh's current portfolio contains seventeen companies. More detailed descriptions of the portfolio can be found at www.bpmarsh.co.uk.

Since formation over 30 years ago, the Company has assembled a management team with considerable experience both in the financial services sector and in managing private equity investments.Several of the directors have worked with each other in previous roles, and all have worked with each other for more than ten years.

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