- Bridgepoint Group will acquire Capita’s 75% stake in Fera Science for £60m
- Fera Science was started in 2015 as a joint venture between Capita and DEFRA
- The disposal programme forms part of a turnaround spurred by CEO Jon Lewis
Capita has completed its strategic sale of all non-core operations by agreeing to offload its majority stake in Fera Science.
The outsourcing giant revealed that private equity firm Bridgepoint Group will acquire its 75 per cent holding in the research organisation for £60million.
Fera was started in 2015 as a joint venture between Capita and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which holds the remaining 25 per cent stake in the business.
Takeover: Capita revealed that private equity firm Bridgepoint Group will acquire its 75 per cent holding in research organisation Fera Science for £60million
It provides testing, research, advisory and assurance services to companies and public sector bodies involved in agriculture and environmental science.
The Yorkshire-based company, formerly called the Food and Environment Research Agency, posted £45million in sales and a £3million pre-tax profit last year.
Capita plans to use money from selling its stake in Fera to improve its balance sheet and investment plans.
Having just sold its travel and events businesses, Agiito and Evolvi, for £37million to Clarity Travel, Capita said the sale of Fera marks the completion of its ‘non-core disposal programme’.
The programme forms part of a turnaround scheme spearheaded by chief executive Jon Lewis to reinforce the firm’s balance sheet and slash its high debt pile.
Lewis said: ‘We had previously announced our intention to sell our stake in Fera as part of our ongoing strategy to facilitate and reinforce Capita.
‘It was the appropriate time to find a new partner to build on the strong, successful foundations now in place at Fera and take the company onto the next stage of its development.’
Lewis will stand down as boss later this year after six years in charge, having helped reduce the firm’s net debts during his tenure from over £1.1billion to £166.2million at the end of June.
Capita has also repositioned itself towards providing service traditionally offered by the public sector and becoming a more high-tech business.
In the last few years, it has won deals to supply training services to the Royal Navy, manage the Civil Service Pension Scheme, and assist fraud victims on behalf of the City of London Police.
The company additionally won contract extensions to run the London Congestion Charge and ULEZ low emissions zone, administer the BBC licence fee, and deliver primary care maintain services for NHS England.
Adolfo Hernandez, the vice president of global telecommunications for cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services, is replacing Lewis as chief executive.
Capita shares were 3.9 per cent higher at 20.8p on Monday morning, making them one of the top five risers on the FTSE 250 Index, but have fallen by around 17 per cent since the year began.
Capita’s share price remains well short of its pre-pandemic highs
