Acquisition

RNS

19 July 2016

This announcement contains price sensitive information

BCA Marketplace plc

("BCA" or the "Company")

Acquisition of Paragon Automotive Limited

The Board of BCA announces that it has acquired Paragon Automotive Limited and subsidiary companies (together "Paragon"), the UK automotive services group. The Paragon acquisition is an important further step in the progression of BCA's strategy of delivering a broad-based automotive support services business that is able to provide a one-stop-shop for the handling of vehicles throughout their life-cycle.

Paragon is a leading UK operator in the provision of outsourced vehicle services to automotive manufacturers (OEMs) and major fleet operators, including rental, leasing and corporate fleets. Paragon handles, processes and stores new vehicles at their point of entry to the UK and at the end of the factory line, as well as providing refurbishment and associated services to the used vehicle marketplace. In addition, Paragon provides specialist services such as captive fleet handover, press demonstration and company car fleet management as well as market-leading stock locator technology tools.

Paragon employs over 1,250 staff and has available over 600 acres of storage, land and refurbishment facilities across the UK. During 2015, Paragon processed over 600,000 vehicles from their facilities.

As the leading provider of outsourced vehicle services in the UK, Paragon supplements BCA's recent acquisitions and BCA's current offerings in logistics, imaging, inspection and finance and will enable BCA to provide a unique full service solution across the automotive supply chain to OEMs, dealers and leasing companies alike.

Paragon has been acquired for an initial Enterprise Value of £105 million, with further earn-out payments of up to a maximum of £30 million, subject to the achievement of financial and market targets over the two financial years 2016/7 and 2017/8. Paragon's unaudited revenue and normalised EBITDA were £158.2 million and £11.0 million respectively for the 12 months to March 2016. The acquisition and earn-out payments will be funded from BCA's existing resources.

Avril Palmer-Baunack, Executive Chairman of BCA, said:

"The acquisition of Paragon gives us a key component in our transformation of BCA to the pre-eminent managed vehicle services provider to the UK and ultimately European automotive industry."

"Following this transaction BCA will manage over 1.5 million cars a year in the UK and the company sees significant potential to grow this new division organically as well as delivering operating synergies."

Enquiries

Square1 Consulting (Financial PR) +44 (0)20 7929 5599

David Bick

Bell Pottinger (Financial PR) +44 (0)20 3772 2500

David Rydell

Cenkos Securities plc (Financial adviser and joint broker) +44 (0)20 7397 8900

Liz Bowman

About BCA Marketplace plc

From the dock to defleet and beyond, BCA touches over 3.5m vehicles a year across the UK and Europe, working with OEMs, fleet operators and dealers to provide the backbone of the automotive supply chain.

From technical and logistics services for new vehicles, refurbishment, storage and logistics for the growing used sector and the core remarketing and auction operation, BCA offers the economies of scale and diversity of services to meet the needs of an impressive portfolio of customers.

As the automotive industry faces a period of unprecedented change, BCA is uniquely placed to deliver a range of linked services through the combined infrastructure of regional defleet facilities, vehicle logistics and preparation centres and physical, hybrid and digital remarketing channels. 

BCA is investing and innovating today to address the big issues facing the automotive industry tomorrow.

www.bcamarketplaceplc.com