SILVR, THE FRENCH REVENUE BASED FINANCING COMPANY, COMPLETES A €18 MILLION FUNDRAISING OPERATION

• Silvr announces a Series A fund raising operation of 130 million euros (including 18 million euros in equity and 112 million euros in debt) led by XAnge, Otium, Bpifrance, Eurazeo, ISAI and business angels : Alexandre Prot and Steve Anavi (co-founders of Qonto), Raphaël Vullierme (co-founder of Luko), Louis Chatriot (co-founder of Alma) and Pierre Dutaret (co-founder of Libeo)

• By completing the largest fundraising operation in the Revenue Based Financing (RBF) sector in Continental Europe, Silvr becomes the European Operating System for financing digital companies and is recruiting 100 employees in 2022 to support its growth and develop its financing platform

• After financing more than 100 companies in just one year after its launch, the company announces the upcoming creation of its own debt fund as well as strategic partnerships with banking players in 2022

A success story for the French Revenue Based Financing specialist

A French fintech company created by two serial entrepreneurs Nima Karimi and Grégory Tappero, Silvr, which gives companies access to a new form of financing, has accomplished a genuine exploit. After starting in 2020 by financing a dozen companies in equity for a million euros, then raising seed capital of €3 million at the beginning of 2021, the startup has recruited around twenty employees and financed more than 100 companies, including the most attractive French gems such as Pixpay, Cuure, Poiscaille, Lovys or Partoo.

Silvr has imported into Europe Revenue Based Financing, the “next big thing” in the fintech sector, an innovative financing model that enables companies to finance their growth while preserving their capital.

“As an entrepreneur for the past decade, I have been faced several times with the complexity of financing my startups. Banks are reluctant to grant bank loans to digital companies that do not have assets to provide as collateral.The complex and time-consuming journey of raising equity funds concerns only a handful of companies. I founded Silvr to democratise RBF in Europe, promote fairer access to capital and allow tens of thousands of entrepreneurs who create tomorrow’s services to unlock their growth potential”, says Nima Karimi, CEO and co-founder of Silvr.

A single mission: to provide those who create tomorrow’s businesses with the means to succeed

By creating the most founder-friendly financing solution possible, Silvr’s mission is to help entrepreneurs succeed. It is essential for them to be able to access funds easily to accelerate the growth of their business, without having to pay onerous counterparties. Silvr has developed a platform that allows it to adapt to all digital business models: SaaS, subscription model, e-commerce, mobile apps, etc.

Financing offers are calculated using a model developed by the startup to assess the performance of companies and their growth potential by analysing thousands of complex data (single visitors, turnover, average basket, return on ad spent of paid media campaigns, attrition rates, etc.) as well as industry-specific data. This system allows the fintech company to forecast the company’s future revenues and provide the necessary financing within 24 hours.

Focus on clients financed by Silvr:

• On average, companies financed by Silvr saw 64% growth two months after granting their financing

• 99% of customers financed by Silvr refinance with Silvr

• 29% of Silvr financing is granted to companies created by women

• 35% of companies financed are also supported by venture capital investors

“We are proud to announce this new fundraise, which is a great sign of confidence in the Silvr model. This reinforces our vision and ambition: to contribute to the growth of the digital economy in Europe thanks to our unique financing platform. We will be able to significantly accelerate our development thanks to the recruitment of around a hundred employees, set the first milestones in the creation of our own debt fund and develop technological partnerships with banks,” says Nima Karimi.

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About Silvr

Silvr is reinventing financing for digital companies. As the European leader in Revenue Based Financing, Silvr has developed an Operating System that allows digital companies (SaaS, e-commerce, etc.) to access a portion of their future revenue in less than 24 hours. Silvr financing is based on Silvr Analytics, a proprietary technology platform that connects to software used by digital companies (CMS, PSP, billing software, advertising, etc.) and their professional bank accounts (via open banking) in order to assess their past performance and predict their future revenue. Based in Paris, Silvr is supported by XAnge, Otium Capital, Bpifrance, ISAI, Eurazeo and has financed more than 100 European companies to date.

More information about Silvr: Silvr.co, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter

Press contact
Jihane Teretal
06 08 27 68 85
silvr@jt-conseil.com

Charterhouse Capital Partners LLP (“Charterhouse”), one of the longest established private equity firms operating in Europe, today announces that it has entered into an agreement to invest in Amtivo, a leading provider of accredited certification to companies in 27 countries.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, Amtivo provides accredited certification, training and technology-enabled services, specialising in management system certification. Through its services, Amtivo helps to build high-performing, sustainable organisations that deliver for their customers, employees, investors and the communities in which they operate. The company has grown rapidly over recent years, through twelve acquisitions and like-for-like revenue growth of 15% year-on-year.

Charterhouse will work closely with Amtivo’s management team to help the business grow organically and continue its successful journey of acquisition-led growth.

Charterhouse is acquiring Amtivo from August Equity, a private equity firm investing in UK-based companies. As part of the transaction, August Equity will reinvest a part of its proceeds alongside Charterhouse and management, retaining a minority stake in the business.

James Cocker, Partner at Charterhouse, said: “Amtivo is one of the most exciting and distinctive businesses in the certification space, and benefits from an attractive market, highly effective operating model and an exceptional management team. We look forward to working with Mike and the team to support Amtivo’s continued growth during the next several years.”

Mike Tims, CEO of Amtivo, commented: “We have been grateful for August Equity’s expertise during our partnership and believe that our work has positioned Amtivo favourably for the next phase of our growth. We look forward to partnering with Charterhouse, whose impressive track record of transforming businesses will be invaluable as we embark on the next stage of Amtivo’s journey.”

London, 24 June 2022 – Kensington Mortgages (“Kensington”), the fast-growing specialist mortgage lender, has today announced a sale to Barclays Bank UK PLC (“Barclays”). The sale follows an auction process that attracted interest from a broad range of bidders. Barclays is acquiring the business from funds affiliated with Blackstone Tactical Opportunities (“Blackstone”) and Sixth Street, which have jointly owned the business since 2015 during which time Kensington enjoyed an extended period of accelerated growth. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval.

Barclays is acquiring Kensington Mortgage Company Limited (“KMC”), Kensington Mortgage Services Limited (“KMS”) and a portfolio of UK mortgages consisting primarily of mortgages originated by KMC from October 2021 to completion of the acquisition of KMC and KMS (the “KMC Mortgage Portfolio”). The acquisition will allow Barclays to become one of the few major banks with a specialist mortgage offering.

Kensington is a leading UK specialist residential mortgage lender focused on providing mortgages via brokers to borrowers with complex incomes. Using a combination of proprietary technology, data analytics and human insight to design products and make lending decisions, Kensington focuses on the self-employed and those with multiple or variable incomes – segments that major banks often do not serve. The business, which is based in Maidenhead and has around 600 employees, services approximately £8.7 billion of third party and related party mortgages in addition to the KMC Mortgage Portfolio. Kensington originated approximately £1.9 billion* of mortgages in the year ended 31 March 2022.

Under the joint ownership of Blackstone and Sixth Street, Kensington has improved its processes and expanded its product offerings to become a market leader in specialist lending to the self-employed, first-time buyers, older borrowers and customers with multiple sources of income. The business is also recognised in the industry for having a market-leading data and technology platform, which has facilitated profitable growth, product innovation and exceptional loan underwriting performance. The business has grown its originations at a compound annual growth rate of 22% since the acquisition in 2015.

Mark Arnold, CEO of Kensington Mortgages, commented: “This sale marks the start of an exciting new chapter of growth for Kensington. We have a strong track-record in the specialist mortgage space, using our proprietary data and tech platform to innovate and grow, and now is a natural point to bring in a partner who can help us to drive our next expansion phase. As a major UK bank with a broad reach and offering, Barclays is well-placed to support this expansion, whilst the sale will allow it to differentiate itself as a ‘mainstream specialist’ and offer a range of mortgage solutions not available from competitors.”

Matt Hammerstein, CEO of Barclays Bank UK PLC, commented: “The transaction reinforces our commitment to the UK residential mortgage market and presents an exciting opportunity to broaden our product range and capabilities. KMC is a best-in-class specialist mortgage lender with an established track record in the UK market, strong broker and customer relationships and data analytics capabilities. KMC complements our existing UK mortgage business and broker relationships through the addition of a specialist prime mortgage originator and the utilisation of our strong UK funding base. We look forward to KMC management and employees becoming part of the Barclays group.”

Qasim Abbas, Senior Managing Director, Blackstone Tactical Opportunities, said: “Kensington’s success in becoming one of the UK’s leading specialist mortgage lenders is testament to the quality of its products, the resilience of its business model and the excellence of its management team. In particular, their collective strength in harnessing the power of data science and analytics, prudent risk management and always providing their customers with the right product to suit their individual needs has been key to the evolution of their business.  We wish them the very best as they enter an exciting new chapter.”

Michael Muscolino, Partner at Sixth Street, said: “We want to thank management and the entire Kensington team for their dedication and collaboration over the past decade in building the platform into a market leader. Our focus on using data to drive consistent innovation allowed us to create new products and broaden mortgage access while maintaining exceptional underwriting standards. We wish the company great continued success with its new partners at Barclays.”

* Including Retentions, in the year ended 31 March 2022.

About Kensington Mortgages
Kensington Mortgages was founded in 1995. The business was acquired by Blackstone and Sixth Street Partners in 2015, initiating a period of considerable growth and investment. The mortgage servicing business Acenden was also acquired by the same investors and merged with Kensington, creating a broader UK mortgage business.

Since the acquisition, Kensington has more than tripled the number of underwriters it employs and almost quadrupled its origination volumes. Kensington lent £1.9bn* in new mortgages for the year ended 31^st March 2022.

A clear period of growth was initiated with the arrival of Mark Arnold as CEO in April 2018. Under the guidance of the leadership team, Kensington consolidated a number of disparate legacy brands under a revitalised Kensington identity, launched a best-in-class, data and analytics driven and highly scalable integrated technology platform, sharpened its market positioning and launched a range of new and innovative products. These include mortgages for public sector workers, products that reward borrowers for improving the environmental credentials of their home and a new fixed for term mortgage where monthly payments remain fixed for the entire term of the loan.

The business is now clearly established as a leading specialist mortgage lender, with a strong market position as a lender to the self-employed, younger borrowers, older borrowers and those with more complex personal circumstances. The brand has a 4.4-star consumer rating on Trustpilot.

The business has very strong credit controls. Only 19 loans issued by Kensington Mortgages since 2010 have gone into default, with the total cumulative losses on those loans amounting to just £252,000.

About Barclays Group
Barclays PLC is a British universal bank. It is diversified by business, by different types of customer and client, and geography. Its businesses include consumer banking and payments operations around the world, as well as a top-tier, full service, global corporate and investment bank, all of which are supported by its service company which provides technology, operations and functional services across the Group. For further information about Barclays, please visit its website home.barclays.

About Blackstone
Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. We seek to create positive economic impact and long-term value for our investors, the companies we invest in, and the communities in which we work. We do this by using extraordinary people and flexible capital to help companies solve problems. Our $915 billion in assets under management include investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, opportunistic, non-investment grade credit, real assets and secondary funds, all on a global basis. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

About Sixth Street
Sixth Street is a global investment firm with over $60 billion in assets under management and committed capital. The firm uses its long-term flexible capital, data-enabled capabilities, and One Team culture to develop themes and offer solutions to companies across all stages of growth. Sixth Street’s London-based presence was formed in 2011 to invest in businesses and assets across Europe. Founded in 2009, Sixth Street has more than 400 team members including over 180 investment professionals around the world. For more information, visit www.sixthstreet.com or follow Sixth Street on LinkedIn.

Kensington Mortgages
Jess Gill
jess.gill@edelmansmithfield.com
+44 (0)7980 684 247

Aidan Holloway
aidan.holloway@edelmansmithfield.com
+44 (0) 7970 936 136

Barclays
Oliver Palca
oliver.palca@barclaycard.co.uk
+44 (0)7880 184 177

Blackstone
Rebecca Flower
Rebecca.Flower@blackstone.com
+44 (0)7918 360372

Louis Clark
Louis.Clark@blackstone.com
+44 (0)7867 930156

Sixth Street
Patrick Clifford
pclifford@sixthstreet.com
+1 (646) 906 4339

Gavin Davis
sixthstreetteam@nepean.co.uk
+44 (0)7910 104 660

Ratos has divested all its 4,358,257 shares in Dun & Bradstreet to a value of approximately SEK 725m.

The shares accounted for 25 percent of the purchase price when Ratos divested Bisnode to Dun & Bradstreet for a purchase price based on an approximate enterprise value of SEK 7,200m, representing an EV/EBITA multiple of 13,8x, in 2020.

The deal will have a negative impact on Ratos’s EBITA for the second quarter 2022 of approximately SEK 18m.

“Ratos’s value creation is based on, among other things, organic growth and industrially sound acquisitions. Through the sale of the Dun & Bradstreet shares, we are further strengthening our cash position for the continued growth journey” says Jonas Wiström, President and CEO, Ratos.

Jonas Wiström will continue to be part of the Dun & Bradstreet International Strategic Advisory Board. Dun & Bradstreet is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

For further information:
Josefine Uppling, VP Communication, Ratos, +46 76 114 54 21

About Ratos
Ratos is a business group consisting of 14 companies divided into three business areas: Construction & Services, Consumer and Industry. In total 2021, the companies have approximately SEK 25 billion in net sales. Our business concept is to own and develop companies that are or can become market leaders. We have a distinct corporate culture and strategy – everything we do is based on our core values: Simplicity, Speed in execution and It’s All About People. We enable independent companies to excel by being part of something larger. People, leadership, culture and values are key focus areas.