HG Capital says that it has agreed to sell a stake in team.blue to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The deal vales team.blue at €4.8bn, making it one of the largest privately-owned technology companies in Europe.
Hg describes team.blue as Europe’s leading digital enabler for entrepreneurs and small and medium sized businesses, serving 3.3m customers across 22 countries. team.blue’s solutions are designed to enhance security, ensure GDPR compliance, boost visitor attraction and conversion rates, improve customer engagement through various marketing tools and to assist in both online and offline commerce strategies.
This transaction values the trust’s investment in team.blue at approximately £95.0m. This would represent an uplift of £21.8m (30% or 4.8p per share) over the carrying value of £73.2m in the 31 March 2024 NAV. The trust will receive about £32.6m after e-investing a portion of its proceeds in the business alongside other institutional clients of Hg. The trust’s exposure to team.blue will be £62.4m after the deal or about 2.6% of NAV.
Based on the 31 March 2024 reported NAV, the pro-forma NAV of Hg Capital Trust is expected to be £2.4bn (516.0p per share). The trust’s available liquid resources, which includes the undrawn bank facility of £375m for future deployment (including all announced transactions and the final dividend paid in May) are estimated to be £624m (26% of the pro-forma 31 March 2024 NAV).
Based on last night’s closing price, the trust would be trading on a discount of about 5.6% – narrow for the private equity sector but in line with its long-term trend.
HGT : Hg Capital sells stake in team.blue