ABC sells lucrative voucher business to pay off debts
Australia-based ABC Learning Centres, the world's largest childcare company, and owner of nursery group Busy Bees, has sold its UK childcare voucher business for £90m to the share registration company Computershare.
The sale is expected to be completed on 1 September.
Busy Bees has one of the leading childcare voucher schemes in the UK. John Woodward, group managing director, said, 'We're very confident about the future. It's good news for everyone.'
He said the link between the nursery and voucher businesses would remain. Computershare had 'a skillset which enhances the whole offer' and wanted to expand the voucher scheme, he said. 'It's now a successful business from a starting premise to make childcare more affordable for parents.'
The voucher business annual turnover is £240m, involving 'close to 12,000' employers and 100,000 parents, Mr Woodward said.
The value of the voucher side had more than doubled in value since ABC bought the combined nursery and voucher businesses from Busy Bees for £70m in December 2006, when it was worth around £35m.
ABC's chief executive Eddy Groves said, 'The sale price reflects the strong growth of the voucher business since our 2006 acquisition and will be a positive outcome for shareholders.'
Computershare's president and chief executive Stuart Crosby said, 'The synergies between the Computershare and BBCV businesses make this an exciting acquisition for us.'
ABC will use the proceeds of the sale to pay off the company's bank debt. Earlier this year ABC experienced a massive crash in share prices which analysts believed was sparked by investors' concerns about the company's A$1.7bn (£810m) of debt (Analysis, 6 March).
