Carlyle IRR over 150%

Carlyle Group made three times its money and generated an IRR of more than 150% with the sale this month of Inmedia Communications. The transmission services company is being sold to Macquarie-owned buyer Arqiva for about £70m.

Inmedia was acquired by Carlyle through a leveraged buyout in April 2004. Led by Nick Thompson, CEO, and Richard Vos, chairman, the company uses a combination of satellite and IP infrastructure to serve the broadcast, enterprise and carrier markets and provides services to some of the UK’s major broadcasters. Inmedia acquired Cable and Satellite Transmissions in January.

This is the third successful exit by the Carlyle Europe Venture Partners (CEVP) fund in a year. Carlyle sold Egencia, the online business travel service, in 2004 to IAC/InteractiveCorp and sold Apama, the real-time analytics software company, to Progress Software in April 2005. The latest investment completed by the fund was the acquisition in April 2005 of Cameca, the French manufacturer of semiconductor metrology equipment and scientific instruments dedicated to micro and nano analysis.

“This is an excellent return for our investors and continues our strong track record of exiting fast-growth companies to trade buyers. Our investment portfolio is maturing well and in line with our expectations,” said David FitzGerald, managing director, Carlyle Group.

Carlyle was advised by Latham & Watkins, PwC for accounting and Ingenious Corporate Finance.