Bright Horizons Family Solutions group has acquired the nursery group, Kidsunlimited, for £45 million.
Ansons LLP advised Bright Horizons, a US based childcare services provider as it acquired the UK nursery group, Kidsunlimited.
Jasbinder Singh, corporate partner at Staffordshire-based Ansons led the corporate side of the transaction whilst Simon James, commercial property partner at Ansons led a team of 5 lawyers who were required to deal with over 60 sites across the country which included a combination of leasehold and workplace based locations.
Kidsunlimited is one of the UK’s largest providers of nursery care operating 64 nurseries including workplace nurseries for a number of blue chip companies. Bright Horizons, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has already established itself as a global provider in child care and education services with its UK HQ based in Northampton. The purchase of Kidsunlimited increases Bright Horizons’ share of the UK market to over 200 centres serving approximately 15,500 children nationwide.
This is the second acquisition Ansons has advised Bright Horizons on following a similar acquisition in 2012 which will now reinforce Bright Horizons’ strength in the childcare and education sector in the UK.
Jasbinder Singh commented that: “The nursery sector has seen significant consolidation in recent months and we expect to see this trend continue. For this transaction we worked directly with Bright Horizons’ US and UK based acquisition team”.
Simon James added “We involved a team of five commercial property lawyers to ensure that we could complete our investigations on the target group’s property portfolio, we’ve now added over 100 sites to Bright Horizons’ UK portfolio in the last year”.
David Lissy, the CEO of Bright Horizons said “We have long admired the Kidsunlimited team and are excited to welcome the children and families they serve as well as their nursery staff and clients into the Bright Horizons® family. Both organisations share a deep commitment to quality early years education and workplace child care, giving us the seamless ability to join forces and making this a natural step for our growth in the region. The combination gives us a well-established foothold providing high-quality care and early education for children throughout England, and solidifies our position as the leader in providing high-quality employer sponsored child care throughout the UK”.
Jas Singh is a corporate partner with Ansons Solicitors LLP and specialises in mergers and acquisitions. He can be contacted at jsingh@ansonsllp.com.