Kings Park Capital has sold IHS to Battery Ventures
Kings Park Capital LLP (“Kings Park Capital”) has completed the sale of IHS GmbH (“IHS”), a provider of marketing, distribution and training services to the global hospitality industry, to Battery Ventures (“Battery”), a US-based technology-focused fund.
IHS is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and supports 20,000 hotel properties in 65 countries reaching 120 million guests and helping its customers generate more than $3 billion in room revenue each year. Its two main businesses are Worldhotels, which provides sales and marketing services to nearly 450 affiliate or franchise 4-star and 5-star independent hotels, and Trust International, which provides hotel room distribution and reservation technology to hotel chains. Trust International processes nearly 4 million transactions p.a. through distribution channels such as GDS, OTA and IBE.
Kings Park Capital supported the formation of IHS in 2008 and achieved strong growth in both underlying revenue and EBITDA through a process of investing in management talent and the company’s products and services. The sale represents the first full exit by Kings Park Capital from its inaugural fund and generated a gross money multiple of 3.8x.
Battery, has a wealth of experience in the travel technology space, and is ideally placed to support IHS in the next stage of its development.
David Richardson, IHS Chairman commented: “As was important to us, the Lincoln team was able to provide a seamless service across London and Frankfurt. Also, Lincoln’s ability to identify and access strategic and private equity buyers around the world allowed us to run a competitive process.”
Hugo Robinson, Kings Park Capital partner commented: “The Lincoln team became our trusted partner through the process, advising us on the big issues and at the same time looking after the detail. We are very pleased with the process run by Lincoln which resulted in a successful first full exit for us.”
Lincoln International acted as exclusive M&A advisor to the sellers.
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