UK private equity company, Elysian Capital, is targeting fresh deals in Ireland after opening a Dublin office and backing a management buyout (MBO) of Dublin refrigeration company, Cross Rental Services.
Elysian has provided finance for the company's management to buy it back from another UK private equity outfit, Lonsdale Capital, who first invested in Cross Rental in 2018.
The deal is Elysian's second acquisition in the Irish market after it backed an MBO at Westmeath plastics company, Mergon Group, in 2019. It has now officially opened an Irish branch under the management of Laura McCoy, a former Elysian executive who has returned to the firm after a stint as a director of corporate finance at Deloitte's Irish office. She takes up the role of investment director at Elysian Ireland.
"We see the opening of an Irish office as a key strategic opportunity for us to grow our presence in Ireland," said Ken Terry, chief executive of Elysian. "With two portfolio companies now in the Irish market, we are looking forward to building our footprint here and are excited about the opportunities this new presence brings us."
Cross Rental Services
Cross Rental was founded in 2006 and rents out refrigeration units to caterers and other businesses. It also supplies boilers, heaters and air conditioning units. A value for the transaction was not disclosed, but it is likely to be north of the €31 million book value for 2019 that Cross Rental put on most of its assets in recent filings to the Companies Registration Office. It has expanded since then.
After Lonsdale bought Cross Rental in 2018, the company sought to beef up its presence in the UK market, making acquisitions in 2019 and 2020. The group’s most recent accounts show it had sales of €10.6 million in 2019 and made a net loss of €2.2 million, At that stage, about 40 per cent of its sales were in the UK and the rest in Ireland, although this proportion has likely changed since then due to UK acquisitions.
Graeme Nesbitt, the chief executive of Cross Rental, said Elysian's investment in the business will enable it to pursue further acquisitions.
