Personal fairness agency Keyhaven Capital Companions has agreed to promote its fairness stake in impartial collision restore group Steer Automotive to pan-European personal fairness investor Oakley Capital.

The bodyshop group’s founder Richard Steer and the present administration crew will proceed to guide the enterprise and are reinvesting alongside Oakley. As a part of the transaction, Oakley will purchase the shares held by Keyhaven Capital Companions and Chiltern Capital.

Since Capital’s and Keyhaven’s investments in 2021, Steer accomplished 18 acquisitions to create a community of over 100 restore centres throughout the nation. The group has expanded from its core passenger automotive restore market into luxurious automotive restore, industrial car restore and technical providers.

Steer has additionally elevated its variety of producer accreditations to 43 together with manufacturers reminiscent of Porsche, Rolls Royce, Bentley, McLaren, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, JLR, Tesla, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen Group, Stellantis and Ford.

Steer has invested considerably in its operational infrastructure and administration crew which has improved its operational effectivity, whereas additionally introducing knowledge and analytics instruments to reinforce KPI monitoring.

In 2023, Steer was ranked throughout the prime 40 in The Sunday Instances’ checklist of 100 fastest-growing UK companies and recognised by The Impartial as one of many prime 100 job creators within the nation.

Steer now represents roughly 5% of the UK collision restore market, using over 2,300 folks and repairing greater than 115,000 autos a yr. The corporate additionally launched the Steer Academy to diversify recruitment channels, practice and upskill the following era of technicians.

Richard Steer, founder and chief govt of Steer Automotive, mentioned: “Over latest years we now have constructed Steer into the UK’s main automotive restore enterprise, with main investments within the expertise, know-how, and methods required to serve the automotive business because it undergoes big change. Each Chiltern and Keyhaven have been nice supporters of our enterprise and have been instrumental in delivering the expansion we now have achieved thus far.

“We’re delighted to have now secured a partnership with Oakley Capital to gas the following part of our progress. Oakley are a terrific match for our enterprise and complement our expertise, with a really sturdy observe file serving to quick rising companies by way of each natural progress and M&A. We see potential to additional develop our share of the automotive restore market by constructing a novel sector-leading proposition that’s properly positioned to fulfill the evolving wants of our shoppers, sustaining our sturdy deal with buyer care and repair high quality.”

The settlement was signed in December with closing anticipated to happen within the second quarter of 2024.

Peter Dubens, founder and managing companion, Oakley Capital, mentioned: “Our technique has all the time been to speculate behind distinctive founders with a transparent strategic imaginative and prescient. We now have been impressed by Richard and his crew, and the best way they’ve constructed Steer to serve the altering wants of the UK automotive business. We stay up for working with the corporate as they ship on their formidable progress plans to scale Steer Group right into a key service supplier for this huge, dynamic market.”