International law firm Bird & Bird has advised the management team on the sale of Kindred Education by management and Unigestion, the global boutique asset manager, to private equity investor, Livingbridge.
With 48 sites across Southern England and the Midlands, Kindred is a multi-award-winning provider of early years education for children aged 0-5, delivering exceptional, professional childcare and early years education. This investment will enable Kindred to continue its steady growth, offering much-needed childcare for families and high-quality early years education for children, especially at a time when the Government is placing significant focus on early years.
Kindred is a longstanding client of Bird & Bird, and the firm has advised Kindred on multiple M&A transactions as part of their buy-and-build strategy over the last five years.
Livingbridge is a mid-market private equity firm with offices in the UK, Australia, and the USA. They invest in sectors like education, technology, services, healthcare, and consumer markets. Unigestion will continue to support Kindred as it has agreed to make a new investment through the Unigestion Direct III Fund.
The Bird & Bird corporate team advising on the deal consisted of Jonathan Angell (partner), Clive Hopewell (partner), and Edward Reardon (senior associate), with assistance from Thomas Davies (associate) and Saoirse McGrath (associate). Our real estate team consisted of Jonathan Baker (partner) and Charlie White (senior associate), and our banking team included Claire Barker (partner) and Dan Campbell (associate), with both teams also acting for the private equity seller, Unigestion. The sale process was led by Edward Lethbridge of Lincoln International; Michael McDonagh and Mollie Treacy of Liberty Corporate Finance Associates provided additional advice to management; and Garrett Hayes of Dentons’ Dublin office advised Unigestion.
Lead partner on the transaction, Jonathan Angell, commented: “We are delighted to have worked with our longstanding client Kindred Education on their sale to Livingbridge. This transaction is key for Kindred’s continued growth plans and help them reach their goal of providing high quality, childcare and education for many more children and families. This deal also demonstrates Bird & Bird’s broad expertise and experience working with private equity firms.”
Ruth Pimentel, Chief Executive Officer at Kindred Education, said: “Bird and Bird have worked with us throughout our growth journey – supporting us with all the legal work for our acquisitions and our banking facilities and now in expertly guiding management through our new PE investment by Livingbridge. Without exception all the teams are excellent. They really understand ‘Kindred’ and know what they need to do to make our transactions happen. Expertly led by our relationship partner Clive Hopewell there are so many to mention but key players in supporting us on our new investment with Livingbridge are Jonathan Angell, Edward Reardon, Saoirse McGrath, Thomas Davies, Charlie White, Claire Barker and Dan Campbell."
