Dutch pension asset manager PGGM and Danish statutory pension fund ATP are selling their stakes in Dutch car-leasing firm LeasePlan to the firm’s French competitor ALD. The transaction values LeasePlan at €7.84bn.
ALD is paying a sum of €4.9bn for a 60.25% stake in LeasePlan to LP Group, a consortium of five private equity investors including PGGM, ATP and UK private equity firm TDR Capital.
ALD will pay €2bn of the sum in cash and the remainder in shares. This leaves the previous owners with a total stake of 30.75% in LeasePlan, which they agreed to hold for a period of at least 12 months.
The consortium bought LeasePlan back in 2015 for €3.7bn. PGGM, which never made public the size of its stake in LeasePlan, declined to comment on the reasons for the exit and the return it made on the investment.
A quick calculation by IPE shows the investment in LeasePlan generated an annualised return of approximately 11% since mid-2015, excluding the annual dividends paid out by LeasePlan to its shareholders.
In 2019, LeasePlan paid out €69m in dividends. Since then, the firm has not paid out any dividends.
As a comparison, the €15bn private equity portfolio of PFZW, the health care pension fund on whose behalf PGGM invested in LeasePlan, returned 11.6% in 2020 and 16.9% in 2019.
LeasePlan has a fleet of 1.8 million lease cars in 29 countries, while ALD has 1.5 million vehicles in 43 countries and is the market leader in Europe. The two firms had been in talks about a merger since October.
“The proposed combination of ALD and LeasePlan into NewALD is expected to be highly synergetic and create an opportunity to cross-leverage the two companies’ complementary capabilities,” ALD said in a press release.
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