Busy Bees' new owner likely to be Canadian pension fund
Meredith Jones Russell
Friday, September 20, 2013
The Busy Bees group, Britain's largest nursery chain, looks set to be bought by a Canadian pensions fund in a 220m deal.
The price of £220m, in spite of revenues of £110m in 2012, reflects Busy Bees’ acquisition of Just Learning in August last year.
Teachers’ Private Capital already owns UK-based Acorn Care and Education, a provider of foster care services and schools for children with learning disabilities, which the Canadian fund bought in 2010 for a reported £150m.
Busy Bees, which was set up in 1983 by former teacher John Woodward, runs 214 nurseries and provides more than19,500 childcare places.
US education company Knowledge Universe currently owns the majority share of the chain, but the original founders also retain large shares.
Busy Bees is the largest group in terms of settings, and provides more than 20 per cent of the total places offered by the 25 largest nursery chains in the UK and Ireland.
No one at Busy Bees or Teachers’ Private Capital was available for comment.
