The deal

Acting as the lead adviser to the management team, our Corporate Finance team has successfully completed the sale of Leisure Pass Group Holding Ltd to Exponent Private Equity and Big Bus Tours. The deal was recently named ‘UK Mid-Cap Deal of the Year’ at the Real Deals Private Equity Awards, generating a seven times cost of investment for Primary Capital.

Leisure Pass Group is an award-winning sightseeing and tourism technology specialist, which operates in 19 major international cities, including London, Paris and Berlin, packaging large numbers of attractions into passes which provide tourists with a convenient and money-saving sightseeing option. The team have known the management team for many years having advised on the first Management buy-out, backed by Primary Capital in 2012, providing management advice, debt advisory and FD interim support. Since then the business has grown significantly and is set to sell over 780,000 passes this year.

This transaction involved a secondary management buy-out to Exponent Private Equity, an active investor in the leisure and online sectors. Their current portfolio includes Photobox, Wowcher and, also, Big Bus Tours, the leading provider of open top sightseeing tours. Legal advice was provided to the management team by Greg Leyshon and Mark Saunders at Osborne Clarke.

“Simon, Clive and the team are well versed in seeing the issues and challenges of a deal from different perspectives. Having worked with them on a previous transaction, we had no hesitation in asking them to support us again on this occasion and they delivered solid and timely advice which helped facilitate the whole process. We look forward to the opportunity of working with them again in the future. Leisure Pass is currently in a transformational growth phase as it accelerates the roll-out of its pass product beyond its core markets and leverages its mobile app to expand into new products and services. We believe that Exponent will be the ideal partner to take our business to this next level of growth.” Darran Evans, Chairman of Leisure Pass Group.

“LPG has proved an excellent investment for us with a strong and differentiated business model and an experienced executive management team who consistently delivered profitable growth. We are delighted with the successful outcome and the input from The team throughout our investment. They acted for Management and ourselves on the initial deal, and then stepped up to provide interim FD resource themselves in the initial months post completion. They then worked alongside us acting for Management on the exit, which contributed to the successful outcome.” Rob Foreman of Primary Capital Partners.