Next makes £65m with Ventura sell-off
Retail giant Next has sold its third party customer contact arm in a £65m deal. Ventura, the trading name of Club 24 Limited, was sold by the Leicestershire retailer to Capita. Next said it would use the proceeds of the sale to buy back and cancel its own shares.
Earlier this year, Next outlined the potential for £160m of share buybacks in the current year. It has now updated that guideline to £225m.
Ventura manages more than 50 million customer contacts each year for a range of additional private and public sector clients.
The sale consideration is £65m on a cash free, debt free basis, of which £63m is payable in cash on completion.
For the year to date, Next has purchased and cancelled 7.9 million of its own shares at a total cost of £173m, 4.36 per cent of the shares in issue at the start of the year.
In the year to January 2011 Ventura reported turnover of £156m and operating profit of £8m.
Capita said the acquisition would increase its capacity for customer management services.
Ian Cherry, managing director of Ventura, said: "This is a great way to take the business forward; this news will strengthen our service to clients and business prospects. We are very excited about the future and look forward to offering our clients even more innovative solutions in customer management outsourcing than ever before."
Ventura has arbout 8,000 employees, mainly in Yorkshire, Cardiff, Milton Keynes and Pune, India, who will transfer to Capita.
The sale does not include Next Directory's customer and account management services which are provided through the Next UK call centres. These will continue to operate from the Next offices in Enderby.
In a statement, Next said: "Next intends to continue to use the services of Ventura that are currently provided to Next. We wish Ventura, its employees and its new owners well in the future."
