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Home › Media › Releases 2005 › CapMan exits from Holiday Club Finland

Press release - 27 June 2005

CapMan exits from Holiday Club Finland

Funds managed/advised by CapMan and Procurator Oy will sell their ownership in Finnish leisure travel service company Holiday Club Finland to London & Regional Properties (L&R), one of the biggest owners of hotel properties in Europe. The transaction value is approx. €120 million and the deal expected to be finalized by mid-August. The transaction is subject to certain authority approvals and consents. The exit will impact CapMan Plc’s result for 2005 by approx. €0.3 million as a result of carried interest income received from Finnventure Fund I.

Finnventure Fund IV managed/advised by CapMan invested in Holiday Club Finland in 1998. Other CapMan funds (Finnventure I, Finnventure V, Finnmezzanine II and Finnmezzanine III) joined the investment in the additional financing rounds between years 1999-2002 funding the growth of the company. The funds’ combined ownership in the company was approx. 31% prior the transaction. The investment in Holiday Club Finland has been reasonable for investors in CapMan funds.

During the investment period the company’s business has expanded strongly through acquisitions, and currently it is one of the leading providers of leisure travel services. In Finland Holiday Club Finland chain consists of 6 spa hotels and nine other holiday resorts. The first spa hotel of the company outside Finland, the Holiday Club Åre, was opened in November 2004 at Åre in Sweden. The company is one of the leading timeshare companies in Europe. Holiday Club Finland’s turnover in 2004 was €76 million and it employs 450 people.

”Holiday Club Finland has shown impressive growth and the company has executed well the chosen strategy and it has very good future prospects with the new owner,” says Markus Sjöholm, Partner at CapMan.

As an owner of more than 60 hotels comprising some 10,000 rooms, L&R is one of the biggest private property companies in the United Kingdom. The real estate portfolio of L&R is valued at more than €5 billion. The implementation of the Holiday Club Finland acquisition will involve the sale of Holiday Club’s real estate property to Dividum, a hotel property investment company owned by L&R through its Swedish subsidiary LR Nordic Properties AB.

“The goal of Holiday Club is to become the leading supplier of leisure travel services in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. We invest heavily in new resorts as well as in improving existing ones”, says Mr Vesa Tengman, Managing Director, Holiday Club. ”From our point of view, London & Regional Properties is the ideal new owner. This international player and its ample resources provide us with important opportunities for expansion of our business operations. We do expect our operations to expand strongly in the future as well”, Tengman continues.

Holiday Club Finland has been the last portfolio company of Finnventure Fund I. The fund will be terminated by the end of year 2005.

For further information, please contact:
Markus Sjöholm, Partner, CapMan Buyout, tel. +358 9 6155 8312
Vesa Tengman, Managing Director, Holiday Club Finland, tel. +358 (0) 500 421 515
Daniel Poser, Managing Director, LR Hotels, London & Regional Properties Group, tel. +44 20 7499 4060

About the companies:

CapMan Group
CapMan is one of the leading private equity investors in the Nordic countries and specialises in middle market buyouts in various industry sectors, technology investments in the IT and communications sectors and investments in life science companies. In addition, CapMan manages/advises private equity real estate funds. The CapMan team comprises around 95 people in Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo. CapMan manages/advises Nordic funds with approx. EUR 1.9 billion in total capital. To date, the funds managed/advised by CapMan have invested in 141 companies in the Nordic countries and exited from 70 companies. The latest investments are made in Norwegian Cardinal Foods AS, Finnish Moventas Oy (formerly Metso Drives Oy), Swedish SciBase AB and Danish Anhydro Group. The portfolio of CapMan’s first private equity real estate fund consists of 17 commercial properties in the Helsinki metropolitan area. CapMan Plc is listed on the Main List of the Helsinki Stock Exchange.

Holiday Club Finland Oy
Holiday Club Finland Oy is the leading Finnish supplier of leisure travel services. The Holiday Club Finland chain includes six spa hotels in Finland and nine other holiday resorts. The first spa hotel of the company outside Finland, the Holiday Club Åre, was opened in November 2004 at Åre in Sweden. Founded in 1986, Holiday Club is one of the biggest timeshare companies in Europe. Initially its operations focused entirely on the time share business. Group sales for 2004 totalled €76million, of which spa hotel, restaurant, leisure services and treatment services will generate two thirds, and time share operations the rest. The Holiday Club chain employs approximately 450 people. The goal of Holiday Club Finland Oy is to become the leading supplier of leisure travel services in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. www.holidayclub.fi

London & Regional Properties
London & Regional Properties has many years of experience in negotiating, concluding and managing substantial property projects both within the UK and Europe. With a portfolio in excess of £3.5billion, L&R is now one of the UK’s largest private property companies. London & Regional properties operate in four main areas: Long-term Property Investment, Outsourcing, Commercial Property Development, and Hotel investment and Development. http://www.lrp.co.uk.

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