Tikehau IM and Macquarie provide debt facility to Apax Partners for acquisition of INSEEC Group

Tikehau Investment Management (Tikehau IM) and Macquarie Lending have provided a significant portion of the unitranche debt facility to support Apax Partners’ acquisition of INSEEC Group, one of the leading players in the private higher education sector in France.

The acquisition was finalised in December for a total acquisition price of €200 million after receiving approval from France's anti-trust authorities. The unitranche debt will comprise a considerable segment of the total financing.

Tikehau IM and Macquarie Lending (part of Macquarie’s Corporate and Asset Finance Group), were able to tailor the facility to the needs of the sponsor and providing flexible terms to support the group’s development.

Apax is acquiring INSEEC from US based Career Education Corporation. INSEEC Group has 15,000 students, 40,000 alumni and 11 colleges across France, Monaco, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Mathieu Chabran, CIO, Tikehau IM said: “Tikehau and Macquarie are pleased to have worked closely with Apax to ensure this facility was structured to support their plans going forward. Our flexible approach allows us to design the best suited facilities in order to meet companies expectations in an environment where ability to deliver is key.”

Florian Herold, Co-Head of Macquarie Lending Europe, said: “INSEEC has solid plans for growth that we are pleased to be able to support, including the expansion of its portfolio of programmes and increase in the number of campuses and exchanges with international universities. We also see a number of other opportunities in the education sector in both France and internationally which we are hoping to pursue in the near future.”

This is the second deal that Macquarie and Tikehau IM have completed under their French Credit Programme which was launched a year ago, the first transaction being a €53 million unitranche financing to support Oaktree Capital Management’s acquisition of Evac Oy in February 2013 . The programme is designed to deliver reliable lending products to borrowers with speed, simplicity and certainty of execution. Macquarie and Tikehau IM are able to invest up to €200 million per transaction.
 

About Tikehau IM: www.tikehauim.com

Tikehau Group was set up in 2004 to invest and manage long-term capital for institutional and private investors in various asset classes (credit, listed and private equity, real estate). In 2007, Tikehau Group launched Tikehau IM, an investment company specialising in fixed income products that has become in a short time one of the leaders in its market. Tikehau Group is majority held by its managers, along with top tier institutional partners, such as Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and Unicredit. Tikehau IM manages more than €2.3 billion euros.