Mid-Market Exit of the Year

AURELIUS (Distrelec)

The sale this year of Distrelec, a leading European B2B distributor of electronic and technical components headquartered in Manchester (UK), to RS Group, attests to AURELIUS’ strengths as a specialist in complex corporate carve-out situations. By bringing together our deep, pan-European expertise and uncompromising focus on operational excellence we were able to deliver an exceptional set of returns to our investors, culminating in an impressive 19x MOIC following a 3 year holding period. 

As well as these core financials, AURELIUS’ sale of Distrelec to RS Group is also a testament to the entrepreneurial approach that has been so integral to our success. Travelling to Switzerland in the dark, early days of the pandemic, our team of dealmakers fought hard to close the transaction. The resilience they demonstrated during this difficult period exemplified the “roll up your sleeves” mentality our operations team would subsequently bring to Distrelec, helping to drive an impressive turnaround in sales from EUR 185mn in 2019 to EUR 265mn by 2022. 

This successful journey underlines AURELIUS ́ record of operational partnership and value creation, and it is for these reasons that we nominate Distrelec as the “Mid-Market Exit of the Year.”

ECI Partners LLP (MiQ)

MiQ is a true organic growth story, with the business achieving 27% revenue CAGR under ECI’s ownership, all organic and 31% EBITDA CAGR. ECI recognised a sizable international opportunity for MiQ, with a particular focus on the US. ECI worked with the MiQ management team to develop a North American expansion strategy, with US revenues seeing a 250% increase during our investment. 

ECI also helped the business scope out the Asian market opportunity and by exit the Business operated out of 30 offices across 10 countries on exit, up from 9 and 5 respectively at entry. To enable the success of this geographic expansion, ECI helped augment the management team beneath the founders, including managing directors in all of MiQ’s major markets. Headcount grew from 350 people at investment to over a thousand at exit. In September 2022 ECI completed a successful exit to Bridgepoint, achieving a 6.1x MOIC return and 49% IRR.

Inflexion Private Equity (Goat)

Goat is a specialist digital marketing agency, focused on the rapidly growing social media market. Inflexion partnered with the founder-led team in March 2021 to ensure the business was positioned to capitalise on strong market growth. In March 2023, just two years later, Inflexion sold Goat to WPP, one of the world’s largest advertising companies, delivering an IRR of just under 80% on day 1, plus the potential to more than double that return over an earnout period. EBITDA grew 3x during the two year investment.

Inflexion supported the business by driving the US strategy, resulting in 150% US revenue growth FY20-22 and the appointment of a senior external hire to lead this area of the business, utilising Inflexion’s Digital and Technology value acceleration resources to deliver significant improvements in Goat’s use of software and data, hiring an experienced sector Chair and making introductions to a number of companies within Inflexion’s network, some of whom became substantial clients of Goat. Headcount grew 40% as revenue growth accelerated and the international footprint expanded.