Some interesting news came through on Sunday which many might have missed and this came via the www.thisismoney.co.uk website and concerned national home improvements group Anglian.
Apparently, Angian Home Improvements have appointed a private equity specialist to it’s board. Not that interesting you say? Well, as TIM reports in it’s piece (which you can read by clicking here), it indicates that the current owners of Anglian might be looking to put the group up for sale.
To recap the current position, again as described by the TIM, Anglian is currently owned by a group of parties, one of which is the Royal Bank of Scotland. Anglian was due to be sold in 2011 and was valued for a hansom £140m and did indeed receive offers over £100m for the business. However at the time the group decided to keep hold of the business and hold it’s nerve a little bit longer.
Now though, Anglian has reported a profit of £7.2m to the year ending March, the group might now be deciding it’s time to cash in on it’s investment. The private equity expert appointed to the board is called Nils Albert and works for private equity giant TPG. No I’ve never heard of them either. However, his appointment seems to indicate the laying of foundations to facilitate a possible sale. Although clearly at this stage nothing else is confirmed.
But this might indeed be a good time to sell. The housing market is back to full strength again, which can only be a good thing if you’re a national window and door company. The business itself is now reporting healthy profits and the general economic outlook looks positive. You can’t blame them can you?
A Good Time To Be A British Company
Lets look at this with a wider perspective. Could this be a good time to be a big British fenestration company? Although Anglian are still owned by their current group, there’s nothing to say that a foreign investor might look at them with interest. It’s also not that long ago since Door-Stop was acquired by American company Masonite for a cool $50m.
Lets look at this from an even wider perspective now. If you think about the UK economy as a whole versus the rest of the world, we’re outperforming France, Germany and the whole of the EU put together. We’re spanking the US and Japan. In fact it’s really only China and India who are outgunning us at the moment. So, if you’re a foreign investor and looking to offload a few dozen million dollars, the UK is looking like a pretty good place to spend your money right now.
I think this is a story to keep an eye on in the coming months.
I like your optimism.
If you ask me, it’ll be much more to do with the lending banks selling up their stakes for their own business needs than any hugely positive sign of the state of the window company and wider economy, the later of which is not outperforming in a healthy way. RBS are and have been selling their stakes in a number of operations.