17 Sep 2014 07:00
Intermediate Capital Group plc
17 September 2014
ACQUISITION OF INTERESTS IN LONGBOW REAL ESTATE CAPITAL LLP
Intermediate Capital Group plc (the "Company"), the specialist asset manager, announces that it has today exercised its option to purchase the 49.255% of Longbow Real Estate Capital LLP (the "LLP") that it does not already own from the eight individual partners of the LLP (the "Partners"). Completion of the acquisition is anticipated in October. An initial payment totalling approximately £13 million will be made to the Partners at Completion; further deferred consideration is payable to the Partners in 2016 and is estimated to be approximately a further £24 million.
The Company acquired its initial 50.745% interest in the LLP in March 2011 from a combination of third party investors (35%) and the Partners (15.745%) for a total consideration of £4.3 million. The acquisition added direct real estate finance to the Company's growing portfolio of specialist mezzanine and senior debt investment strategies.
The acquisition cements the highly successful relationship between ICG and the ICG-Longbow management and investment team, first established in 2011. Since acquisition, the Company has invested or committed over £150m of balance sheet capital as co-investments in ICG-Longbow's fundswhile ICG-Longbow has:
· raised in excess of £1.3bn of discretionary capital across four funds;
· over £1.1bn of fund capital in UK real estate financing transactions invested;
· established a successful senior debt strategy, which accounts for over one third of fund commitments; and
· expanded the team from 10 to 22.
As of today, ICG-Longbow has in excess of £1billion invested across its funds and has in excess of £200 million of transactions in closing. In the ordinary course of business, it is expected that successors to its senior debt strategy and whole loan/mezzanine funds will be launched within six months.
Christophe Evain, Chief Executive Officer of ICG said,
"ICG's business model is underpinned by launching and developing new strategies that utilise the best of our investment expertise, specialist local knowledge and relationships. The 51% acquisition of ICG-Longbow in 2011 initiated the acceleration of this strategy. I am delighted to be completing the acquisition of the balance of ICG-Longbow now, as the potential of the business is even greater today than it was in 2011. I am sure that the ambitions, depth of specialist knowledge and expertise of the committed and incentivised ICG-Longbow team will allow this potential to be fully realised."
Contacts
Investor Enquiries:
Ian Stanlake
Investor Relations, ICG plc
+44 (0) 20 3201 7880
Media Enquiries:
Helen Barnes
Corporate Communications, ICG plc
+44 (0) 20 3201 7760
Neil Bennett
Maitland
+44 (0) 20 7379 5151
END