Searchlight shines on £140m funding package for insurer Wefox
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Searchlight Capital Partners, the private equity firm which has backed companies including Secret Escapes, is to lead a new funding package for Wefox, the European insurance company, that could be worth up to €170m (£141m). Sky News has learnt that Searchlight has effectively proposed stepping in to refinance Wefox's existing bank debt as the group seeks to avoid a fire-sale of its most prized assets.
Banking sources said a deal was close to being struck with Searchlight, which would be accompanied by an equity raise of between €80m (£66.5m) and €100m (£83.1m). Last month, Sky News revealed that existing shareholders in Wefox, which operates across a swathe of European markets, were preparing to back a fresh cash call.
This group is understood to be led by Chrysalis, the London-listed investor in companies such as Klarna and Starling Bank, and Target Global. One banker said that if completed, the wider refinancing deal involving Searchlight could be announced as soon as next month.
The share sale has been designed to allow Wefox to avert a sale of TAF, one of its prized subsidiaries. In a time of change Sky News spent a critical year on a farm. Welsh visitor tax plans spark anger in local tourism industry: 'We'll be clobbered by it'.
Oxford herbicide spinout Moa seeds $40m funding round. It said earlier this month that it had reached an agreement to sell its insurance carrier arm to a group of Swiss companies led by BERAG, an independent provider of pension services. Wefox is also backed by prominent investors including the Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala.
