Home shopping group Ideal Shopping Direct is to be sold to private equity firm Inflexion as interest in TV shopping channels increases.
Inflexion is backing the current management team and when the deal completes former Halfords boss David Hamid will be chairman.
Inflexion is to pay £2.20 per share for Ideal, valuing the AIM-listed business at £78.3m.
Singer Capital Markets analyst Matthew McEachran said the transaction illustrated rising interest in the medium.
He said: “TV shopping as a channel to market is increasing as evidenced by Argos’s trial, which kicks off this summer.”
The deal is supported by almost 70% of Ideal’s shareholders - understood to include founders Paul Wright and Val Kaye, who between them hold 36% of the shares. The deal represents a premium of 46.2p to the share price on July 9, 2010, the last working day before the company said it would consider a sale.
Inflexion said the deal reflected the home shopping group’s growth plans and investment requirements. Details of Inflexion’s plans for Ideal, which operates via four TV shopping channels and five websites, have yet to revealed.
Ideal’s pre-tax profits soared to £6.7m in the year to January 2, up from £1.1m the previous year. Its total sales rose by 13.5% to £117.3m and like-for-likes climbed 10.9% to £111.7m.
The sale is expected to be approved by shareholders at a general meeting on May 6.
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