Mercapital buys Carlyle’s Saprogal

Staying with the Spanish market, US-based buyout firm Carlyle has agreed the sale of its largest local investment to local rival Mercapital after buying the company only last June. Mercapital is paying more than €150m (US$186.6m) for Saprogal, an Iberian pet food company with turnover of about €240m.

Sources close to the deal said Mercapital was investing €39m in equity, with senior debt of €120m provided by Royal Bank of Scotland and ING and a further €25m in mezzanine finance.

These banks had supported Carlyle’s buyout of Saprogal in June 2004 for €130m, in a deal that included €68m of equity. Carlyle had already refinanced the company once under its ownership after acquiring Portuguese animal feed company Nutasa. Net debt is understood currently to be €50m. The deal is Carlyle’s largest on the Iberian peninsular after it formed a four-man team in late 2002 under director Alex Wagenberg.

The market has since taken off with some of the Continent’s largest leveraged buyouts taking place there this year and more expected by the year-end, according to those close to the action.

UK firms Cinven and BC Partners bought travel reservations company Amadeus for €4.34bn; Apax acquired bread maker Panrico for just under €900m; CVC, PAI and Permira agreed to pay €1.34bn for clothing retailer Cortefiel; and JP Morgan

Partners, Providence Equity Partners, Quadrangle Capital Partners and Thomas H Lee Partners supported telecoms company Ono’s €2.25bn offer for Auna’s fixed line business.