Tell us about the sale. How will the group fit within Bright Horizons' structure?
The locations fit well because it increases our presence in the south of England and many sites are in areas where we already have nurseries. It strengthens our operational clusters because more nurseries are located close to each other.
Casterbridge has a strong regional management team and operations director. There are four regional managers who each look after six or seven nurseries.
There are 27 capable nursery managers, demonstrating strong leadership. Most of the management team are staying with us: director Matthew Moore, quality director Sue Pumffrey, operations director Heather Young and HR director Dominic Gill. Director Paul Brosnan will be with us for three months.
What attracted you about Casterbridge?
Bright Horizons has grown largely by acquisition over the past ten years. After Teddies, Casterbridge was on our strategic acquisitions list.
Members of the team carried out mystery shopping visits to all of the Casterbridge Nurseries as prospective parents and were given the warmest of welcomes. What came across incredibly strongly was a consistency across all 27 nurseries, of a commitment to quality.
Will the nurseries be rebranded?
Each Casterbridge nursery has its own name and will keep it. What's important to parents is the local nursery brand and that is important to us as well. Some parents want to know there's a big group. Other parents don't really mind because the relationship is based at local level. For us it's about making sure the local relationship works well. There's no reference to Casterbridge on signage, but there is on internal documents and communications and that will be replaced with Bright Horizons.
We're very happy with how the group runs at the moment. Over time Casterbridge and Bright Horizons will come together to align policies and procedures. We're collaborating over the new EYFS, getting ready for 1 September, and sharing ideas on training and development.We feel quite strongly that it should feel like we are bringing the two together to create the best of both worlds.
Any more deals in the pipeline?
We're a very acquisitive organisation. We're always looking for groups or single site operators with the right quality. Our plan is to continue to grow.
