Busy Bees, which was the fifth largest group listed in the June issue of the Nursery World supplement Nursery Chains, secured 50m funding from private equity house Gresham Trust in 2000. Since then it has bought Copperbeech Day Nurseries, a group based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, and Tibbitots Day Nurseries in Lancashire, in addition to a number of other developments. Including Kindercare, this represents an investment of 27m from Gresham over the last two years.
Kindercare, rated the 11th largest in June's Nursery Chains, owns and operates ten nurseries, of which four provide more than 200 places, and an independent primary school. The group was set up in 1989 by Sarah and Stuart Carr, who will now join Busy Bees in a national management role as part of the acquisition. They have also made a financial investment in the group.
John Woodward, managing director of Busy Bees, said, 'In spirit this is a merger of two groups with great reputations, who are dedicated to providing a quality service to children and parents and strongly supporting staff development. The skills of Stuart and Sarah Carr, in addition to the Busy Bees existing team, provide a strong basis for further development over the next few years.'
He added that the acquisition might put Busy Bees in a position to float on the stock market later in the year. 'Our criteria is that we should be of a sufficient scale, with a robust infrastructure, profits, and a potential for growth - that's our benchmark.'
No nursery chain has yet floated on the Stock Exchange. Leapfrog, which was previously the second largest group, had stated its intent to float within the first six months of this year but withdrew because of unstable market conditions.
Mr Woodward said that Busy Bees might seek to buy another provider of equivalent size in the next few years. 'We are looking at a number of new opportunities,' he said.
The Kindercare nurseries will be keeping their branded image. Mr Woodward explained, 'We want a national network of local nurseries. We want a group umbrella to give support, but we are not looking to be a corporate stamp.
The Kindercare nurseries have got a very strong local identity.'
Sarah Carr is currently chair of the National Day Nurseries Association, which Busy Bees has recently joined. Kindercare is a long-standing member.
Mr Woodward said this was another example of synergy between the two groups.
Kindercare's Ashton House premises near Preston, which house a 248-place nursery - featured in 'Thinking Big' in the November 1999 edition of Nursery Chains - will take on an additional role as the Busy Bees national management development centre, offering management training.
Other training facilities will be available at Busy Bees' new head office in Staffordshire, currently under development, and on the site of one of the group's London nurseries.
Busy Bees also supported the development of a part-time degree course based in the International School of Business, Information Technology and Enterprise at Liverpool Hope, validated by the University of Liverpool and launched last September. The course is aimed at staff working in day nurseries, cr ches, out-of-school clubs and nursery schools, and was taken up by 27 students in the first year, followed by another 25 who will start this September.
Liverpool Hope is currently developing an online version of the course which will be launched in January, subject to validation. Award director Petra Luck said, 'We have been inundated with queries about the course and wanted to make it accessible to people all round the country.'
Busy Bees' childcare voucher scheme is also expanding and it was recently extended to 116,000 employees of Asda.
