Capita Asset Services to be acquired by Link Group

Capita Asset Services offers a range of services including mortgage and loan servicing.  Capita has previously entered the UK mortgage servicing Crown Mortgage Management and Vertex Mortgage Services. The transaction is subject to certain regulatory and other approvals and completion is expected in Q4 2017.

Upon completion of the sale, after the deduction of transaction expenses (including certain separation-related costs, including a £17 million one-off pension contribution) of approximately £72 million, the net cash proceeds are intended to be used to reduce indebtedness, including the Company’s receivables financing facility. Including the proceeds and excluding the EBITDA generated by CAS, the pro forma net debt / EBITDA ratio would have been 1.8 times at 31 December 2016.

Commenting on the transaction, Andy Parker, Chief Executive of Capita said: “We are delighted to announce the sale of the Capita Asset Services businesses to Link Group. In the Autumn of last year, we set out a strategy to simplify and streamline Capita by repositioning the Group and refocusing on delivering technology-enabled business and customer management solutions that make business processes smarter and deliver better customer service. This disposal is an important step in realising this strategy. We have achieved an attractive price and the reduction in leverage is significant and ensures that Capita can fully focus on the pursuit of what it does best: continuing to deliver outstanding services to our clients and their customers.

“We have made good progress across all the strategic initiatives we set out at the end of 2016. We have re-structured to become a market-facing organisation with a renewed focus on sales, completed our disposals of non-core businesses which will result in a significant reduction in leverage and made good progress in improving productivity and reducing costs across the Group. The disposal of CAS, alongside our other initiatives, makes Capita a leaner business with a stronger balance sheet, better placed to return to profitable, sustainable growth.”

Link Group is a global technology and financial data firm. Managing Director John McMurtrie, said “CAS is a business with strong market positions across its operating units, underpinned by longstanding customer relationships and an experienced management team. “The business is highly complementary to Link Group and represents an attractive platform for our company’s further expansion into the UK and European markets.” Whilst Link Group has been a market leader in Australia for a number of years and has had a presence in Europe, with the acquisition of CAS, we can say that Link Group is now a truly international company with expanded opportunities for further growth. We are genuinely excited by the opportunities for the expanded Link Group and the employees of CAS.”