BGF invests more than £70 million in the North West and celebrates record year for exits

BGF has invested £70 million in the North West in 2021, backing some of the most exciting entrepreneurial businesses in the region and pledging to invest more in 2022.

During the year, BGF successfully exited five businesses in the North West, including Kids Planet, having supported the nursery group’s rollout from 17 to more than 80 sites. EBITDA increased five-fold during in the investment hold period.

BGF also announced a successful exit of NSS, as the business was acquired Premier Technical Services Group Ltd (PTSG) in a deal that delivered excellent returns for all shareholders. Other significant exits include CurrentBody – the world’s largest provider of clinically proven beauty devices for home use, which sold a £50 million majority stake in the business to eComplete.

The team has backed five new businesses in the last 12 months, as well as providing follow-on funding to existing portfolio businesses. New investments include a £15 million investment into Preston-based hybrid cloud and IT managed services provider, Celerity, as well as £7.5 million in Lancashire e-commerce logistics and tech company, Fulfilmentcrowd.

This followed the £4 million investment into double Queen’s award-winner, DriveWorks – the Warrington-headquartered company, which works with manufacturing and engineering businesses to provide innovative software solutions.

We’re extremely fortunate in the North West to have an abundance of excellent entreprenuerial companies that are defying the current challenges, and committing to ambitious growth plans. We expect strong investment activity across the region to continue into 2022 and have a good pipeline with new investments and exits already well progressed.

Neil Inskip, Head of BGF in the North West

“This year’s success for BGF reaffirms our flexible model and point of difference in the market as business owners in our portfolio have been able to take advantage of attractive investment opportunities. We’re confident the region’s businesses have the growth potential, talent, and appetite to make 2022 another standout year, and we’re excited about supporting them on that journey.”

Strong regional momentum comes off the back of a significant year for BGF as a whole, which has seen the growth capital investor complete 67 new deals and invest £600m over the course of 2021 – a record year for the fund which underlines its critical contribution to the UK’s growth economy.

BGF is a long-term patient investor, making initial investments between £1 million to £15 million for a minority equity stake. It backs ambitious teams across a range of sectors and funds a variety of growth plans.