Complete Childcare buys Berkshire group

The nursery chain already owns 10 nurseries in the home counties and will add the four Yellow Brick nurseries to its portfolio. The settings have a capacity for 214 children, bringing the Complete Childcare’s number of places to around 900. The majority of the newly acquired settings are graded ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted.

Yellow Brick was originally established in 1989 by a group of teachers for their own children and has been developed by Charlotte Wilkinson, one of the founders, and Diana Kilding who joined in 1992. Ms Wilkinson said, ‘It was a difficult decision to sell as we have grown the nurseries over 27 years along with a dedicated staff team, but the time has come to retire. We wish all of the staff, parents and children the very best for the future and we believe they are in very good hands.’

Nick Brown, associate director at Christie & Co brokered the sale and said, ‘Over the years they have worked exceptionally hard to create a group of childcare settings which not only offer exceptional childcare but also have a reputation that is second to none and we are delighted to be able to complete on a highly confidential sale in such a short space of time.’

Complete Childcare cited plans to extend its existing number of registrations and expand geographical coverage further into Berkshire and Oxfordshire in last autumn’s Nursery Chains supplement.

Mark Traynor, partner at HRC Law, said, 'The day nursery sector is extremely active at the moment, fuelled by an injection of private equity investment and larger operators seeking opportunities for strategic growth.
 
'Family-owned businesses are ripe targets in the current market, with a large number of owner-managers also showing a renewed interest in selling their business following uncertainty in the economy post-Brexit. We expect to see the number of deals in the sector increase before the end of the year. This will include sales, acquisitions and private equity investments, as larger groups look to capitalise on a potentially very profitable market.'

• Mark Traynor will be running a workshop with Courteney Donaldson, head of childcare at Christie & Co on buying and selling nurseries at the Nursery World Business Summit on 8 November. . More information and booking here.