Inflexion sells Harrington Brooks

Inflexion Private Equity, the mid-market private equity investor, is pleased to announce the sale of Harrington Brooks, the UK’s leading provider of debt solutions to consumers, in a secondary buyout to RJD Partners. The exit represents a multiple of over 3.1x for Inflexion’s investors and is Inflexion’s ninth successful exit from its 2003 Buyout Fund.

Under Inflexion’s ownership Harrington Brooks made four corporate acquisitions, two of which were part funded by additional funds from Inflexion. The company is growing steadily and has a team of over 380 employees.

At the time of the original deal Harrington Brooks was focused exclusively on debt management, but under Inflexion’s ownership the company launched into the IVA market under the brand name One Advice. One Advice is now one of the leading providers of IVAs in the UK. Harrington Brooks has also launched a variety of additional innovative service lines to customers including assisting with utility bills, right to buy for council tenants, loan consolidation and financial claims for victims of mis-selling, thus broadening its range of income streams. Inflexion also supported the company in the creation of an innovative “B2B” model where Harrington Brooks provides back office administrative services to five other debt solution providers. Harrington Brooks has assisted over 100,000 customers during the period of Inflexion’s ownership, and currently has over 37,000 customers with debts formally under management by the company.

The sale process was led by Tim Smallbone, Partner of Inflexion Private Equity, who commented: “We are proud that during the period of our ownership Harrington Brooks has more than trebled in size, assisted so many distressed consumers without deviating from the best advice model, deepened its service offering and negotiated the tough trading period unscathed. The company is now in a position to move onto the next stage of its development with RJD and we wish the team every success in the future”.

Matthew Cheetham, CEO of Harrington Brooks and a lead member of the Secondary Buyout Team, said: “Inflexion has been an ambitious and proactive investor and has fully supported the management team in developing the business so effectively over the last five years”.

Harrington Brooks and its shareholders were advised by Dow Schofield Watts (financial advisor) and Cobbetts (legal advisor).