HSBC Private Equity disposes of shower business

HSBC Private Equity has sold Mira showers, part of the Caradon plumbing division, to Kohler Corporation, for £301 million. The firm acquired Caradon Plumbing from Novar in November 2000 in a £496 million institutional buyout and the sale of Mira marks a swift exit for HSBC Private Equity. It also follows the recent sale of another division of Caradon, Twyford Bathrooms to Sanitec earlier this year for £84 million (see evcj February, page 30), completing the programme of disposals that was planned at the time of the acquisition.

Phil Goodwin, head of UK investment for HSBC Private Equity, said: “We have now sold two of the five businesses we acquired, and this together with better management of working capital has recouped almost all of the original investment.”

HSBC Private Equity will continue to develop the remaining Caradon businesses in boilers and radiators, that Goodwin says are also performing strongly under the leadership of Trevor Harvey.

Caradon Plumbing was advised by Credit Suisse First Boston, Eversheds and Ernst & Young. Kohler Corporation was advised by Andersen and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton.

HSBC Private Equity is the European private equity arm of the HSBC Group. It has internal and external funds under management of over £1 billion and a network of offices in London, Manchester, Paris, Düsseldorf and Stockholm. The firm has supported over 400 businesses over the last thirty years, and in 2000 arranged five transactions with a total value of euro2.1 billion.