Industry News
Phoenix Equity Partners buys Nationwide Autocentres
13th Febuary 2006
Nationwide Autocentres, the Solihull-based chain of 213 all-makes car servicing outlets, has been sold for £49m to private equity firm Phoenix Equity Partners, which is backing a new management team led by Duncan Wilkes as CEO and supported by Bill Duffy (COO) and Andy Stevens (CFO). All are former RAC senior managers.
The former Nationwide team of Tom Dunn (CEO), David Staniland, Roy Mitchell and Gwyn Jones formed Nationwide Autocentres in a ‘Management Buy-In’ of 41 vehicle service centres from Lex Autocentres in January 2001. Nationwide's buy and build strategy included acquiring the remaining 96 former Lex, then RAC Autocentre branches from RAC plc in April 2002, the Stop’n Steer part of Kwik-Fit in February 2003 and the 50 former Halfords service outlets from the AA in November 2004, with further equity funding from NBGIPE, the private equity business of the National Bank of Greece.
Nationwide’s rapid growth via acquisition led to its inclusion in the 2005 Sunday Times FASTRACK 100 list of companies. Its outlets are designated "AA Approved Service Centres" through a referral agreement with the AA.
Phoenix Equity Partners manages four private equity funds totalling over £550m on behalf of institutional and other investors from around the world. None of its other existing holdings are in the automotive sector. The FT reported that competing would-be private equity buyers of Nationwide were Isis and Gresham.
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