The Magazine

	Print
	Email
	Text size
	Comment

Management walk off with shoe company

By Mark Dunne on February 25 2008

A shoe retailer has been valued at £95 million after its chief executive bought the company with five of his fellow directors.

Neil Clifford led the buy-out of Kurt Geiger, which sells its own-branded footwear as well as those by Prada, Gucci and Jimmy Choo, from Barclays Private Equity.

The buy-out team was backed by private equity firm Graphite Capital, which now holds an undisclosed majority stake in the business. Lloyds TSB and the Royal Bank of Scotland provided debt with the buy-out team also investing in the deal.

The buy-out team included creative director Rebecca Farrar-Hockley, head of finance Dale Christilaw, retail operations director Sally McClymont and wholesale and licensing director Andrew Lee.

Clifford said management intend to invest in growing the business. “With Graphite’s support, we will pursue our strategic objective of becoming the leading global luxury and premium shoe retailer.”

This is the second acquisition to be financed by the £555 million Graphite Capital Partners VII fund, following its investment in recruitment process outsourcing specialist Alexander Mann.

Graphite’s investment was arranged by Markus Golser, Anne Hoffmann, Andy Gray and Mudassir Khan.

Golser said the firm is backing a strong management team, with Barclays director Steven Silvester adding that Kurt Geiger has provided the bank with a good return on its investment.

Graphite was advised on its investment by law firm SJ Berwin with McQueen handling the financial issues, while BDO Stoy Hayward and Addleshaw Goddard supported the buy-out team. Barclays’ legal adviser was Travers Smith and it was also assisted by corporate finance adviser Hawkpoint Partners. PricewaterhouseCoopers handled the due diligence review.

Kurt Geiger has more than 70 concessions in department stores, such as Harrods, Selfridges, House of Fraser, John Lewis and Liberty. It also has 16 of its own stores, six airport outlets, concessions in France and Italy as well as licensing, wholesaling and franchising operations. It sells brands, such as Christian Louboutin, Dolce & Gabbana, Paul Smith, Church’s and John Lobb.

Comments [0]