Hamworthy Heating
NBGI PE’s investment in Hamworthy was made in January 2002 in a deal valued at £11.2 million.
Hamworthy is
a well established and respected brand in the UK commercial boiler
market with a reputation for reliability and robustness of its
products.
In March 2008 NBGI PE sold Hamworthy in a trade sale
to Atlantic Sfdt, the French engineering conglomerate. The exit
generated a 6x return and an IRR of 37.5%p.a. for NBGI PE.
NBGI
PE spotted the opportunity to invest in a business which had a strong
brand, but had suffered from a lack of financial control and analytical
rigour in its operations.The value created was principally due to:
- supporting the management team in an investment programme to develop a new range of energy efficient boilers;
- taking the difficult, but correct, decision to replace the Chairman at a relatively early stage in the investment to one more suited to driving the business towards exit; and
- through refinancing the business in 2005, benefiting Hamworthy by lowering its weighted average cost of capital, and NBGI PE by derisking the vast majority of its investment.
