ECI Partners today announces the sale of our investment in Reed & Mackay to Inflexion generating a multiple of 3.4x cost to investors.
Reed & Mackay is a premium corporate travel management company delivering a personalised service through cutting edge technology. Its strategic travel management services focus on law firms, insurance companies, finance houses and the Energy Sector. More recently it has opened offices in Scotland, the US and the UAE. Reed & Mackay also provides an industry leading Event Management service. In the year to March 2016 Reed & Mackay handled nearly 600,000 client travel transactions.
Since ECI invested alongside Livingbridge in April 2011, the business has continued to outperform the market through investment in people and technology and has delivered consistent, profitable growth. Highlights include:
- The client base has grown over 68% (a CAGR of 14%) to nearly 500;
- A 97% client retention rate demonstrating the high quality service and value that the whole team at Reed & Mackay delivers daily to its clients;
- Total transaction value passed £200m for the first time in 2014 and is set to reach almost £250m in 2016;
- EBITDA has more than doubled, growing at a CAGR of 15% over the last 5 years;
- Employment has grown from c.250 in 2011 to what will exceed 400 by the end of 2016;
- Development of proprietary technology tools including a market leading online booking tool, traveller app and travel risk management platform;
- Wholly owned offices opened in Scotland, the US and the UAE, further enhancing the platform for international growth.
This business is now ideally placed to take its market leading service proposition to an increasingly international audience.
ECI has built up an impressive twenty-year track record of private equity investing within the UK travel sector with R&M becoming the latest successful realisation in a long line of prior investments in this sector including ECI 9’s CarTrawler sold to BC Partners in April 2014 (5.7x), LateRooms.com (9.1x), Kirker (2.1x), Holiday Autos (11.6x), Hoseasons (4.3x) and Sunsail (2.7x). The most recent exits from the Business Services sector have included ECI 9’s Citation (5.4x), Fourth (3.5x) and XLN (3x).