Cinven Sells Wightlink Holdings –

European private equity firm Cinven has sold Wightlink Holdings Ltd. in a secondary buyout worth GBP180 million. The Royal Bank of Scotland is supporting the management of Wightlink, while RBS Mezzanine, part of the bank’s structured finance division, is providing a GBP21 million mezzanine facility. The deal was arranged by the debt ventures team to buy out Cinven and other shareholders.

Having worked with the Wightlink team since 1995, Cinven recently invested more than GBP15 million in the company to provide extra capacity with the purchase of two new catamarans and its largest vehicle ferry, the St. Clare.

The original management buy-in was conducted in 1995, led by group CEO of Wightlink Mike Aiken and backed by Cinven and The Royal Bank of Scotland’s leveraged finance group. The business was bought from Sea Containers for an enterprise value of GBP107.5 million.

Wightlink operates eight car ferries and four catamarans and runs the three shortest cross-Solent ferry routes, namely Portsmouth to Fishbourne, Portsmouth to Ryde and Lymington to Yarmouth. The recent addition of the St. Clare will add the capacity for an extra 186 cars and 1,200 passengers to the overall capacity of these routes.

Through the secondary buyout, Aiken and finance director Adam Humphrys, along with 14 managers, have significantly increased their original equity stakes in the business.