Divestment of temping agency Accent Jobs for People is nearing as De Tijd heard through the grapevine that Waterland and Bencis are prime candidates. Accent is Gimv’s biggest buy-out investment: important news, but no impact ton NAV (yet).
News:
De Tijd writes that after the first selection round only a handful of takeover candidates remain in the running for Accent Jobs for People (which has been on the market for quite some time). A due diligence is being conducted before binding offers are expected in the course of the next couple of weeks. The financial newspaper already on 24 June 2011 wrote that Gimv contemplated an exit, after it entered its capital in 2006 via the acquisition of 33% of the shares held by founders Conny Vandendriessche and Philip Cracco. At the time, it was unclear whether an exit would lead to Gimv stepping out of the capital, or whether both founders might be willing to give up control. Today, it appears that both founders appear to be willing to also shed part of their stake.
Under Gimv’s auspices, Accent’s revenues have grown from € 90m to € 230m based largely on geographical expansion out of Belgium and into Europe, mainly targeting Spain and the Netherlands. FY11 EBITDA reportedly came in at € 31m. We remind that in March 2011 sector peer Actief Interim was sold by (17,47 EUR, 1,42%) Private Equity and Indufin to Private Equity fund Gilde Equity Management. No financial details were disclosed at the time, but De Tijd mentions that the acquisition price was based on a 7x EBITDA-valuation multiple. When applied to Gimv’s 33% stake, a back of the envelope calculation brings the value of the stake in the € 50m - € 55m range. Hence, we expect an IRR that will hover substantially above Gimv’s historic IRR. No Greek tragedy, in other words.
Our View:
Since Accent is Gimv’s single-biggest investment in the Buy-out and Growth portfolio, the news is clearly important. But up until the actual signing of the deal, and depending on the price received, there’s no impact on our SOTP model. We remind that Gimv is very active when it comes to monetizing part of its portfolio, as recent news pointed out that Ceres and Chemocentryx are preparing an IPO themselves (Fortunately on Nasdaq , instead of the Athens stock exchange, so investors needn’t worry for any future exposure to the Drachma). Going by Gimv’s bulky war chest, however, we would certainly also welcome redeployment of liquid assets in order to secure future returns.
Conclusion:
Based on yesterday’s closing prices, we estimate adjusted equity value per share at € 43.00 with a 10.5% discount. We estimate the current dividend yield at 6.8%. The 3Q11/12 trading update will be released on 23 February.