LDC drives off with Leasedrive Velo

LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds TSB bank, has acquired Leasedrive Velo, a UK vehicle management group, in an £80m (US$145m) secondary buyout from mid-market private equity peer Lyceum Capital.

Debt and asset finance facilities were provided by Royal Bank of Scotland.

The management buyout was led by chief executive Roger Partridge, commercial director Roddy Graham and CFO David Bird.

Wokingham-based Leasedrive Velo provides fleet management, contract hire and mid-term vehicle rentals to largely blue chip clients such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, British American Tobacco, Samsung, T-Mobile, John Lewis Partnership and Eli Lilly.

LDC said it would focus on driving growth in the contract hire and fleet management divisions, aimed at increasing the business’ £62m turnover by a third during the next two to three years and increase its share of the £10bn fleet management service market.

Established in 1983, Leasedrive was acquired by Lyceum Capital in a debt-only buy-in management buyout (BIMBO) in 2003, before being merged with fellow Lyceum portfolio business Velo in January 2007.

Shoosmiths, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Egon Zehnder International advised LDC. Osborne Clark advised management.