Callcredit aimimg for £1bn stock market float

A Chicago-based private equity firm won the race to buy Callcredit Information Group last year in a deal said to be worth £500m.

The sale process attracted 20 suitors, but management chose GTCR to back its growth plans.

Callcredit is one of Yorkshire’s fastest-growing corporates with organic sales up nearly 15 per cent last year to £126m.

With GTCR’s support, it is looking east from its base in Leeds for acquisition and partnership opportunities in Europe and Asia.

John McAndrew, chief executive, told The Yorkshire Post that the preferred exit is an initial public offering in the next four to five years, rather than another private equity sale or purchase by a larger rival.

“We could continue moving up the leagues in private equity, but that’s disruptive,” he said.

“There’s always being bought by a competitor, but we like being in control of our destiny. An IPO means we can raise funds to continue our expansion and growth.”

He believes that Callcredit will be worth £1bn by the end of 2017.

The group provides consumer data and analytics solutions to help businesses make better informed decisions.

Its customers include major national and international banks, media businesses, petroleum, automotive, power and retail organisations.

Skipton Building Society founded Callcredit in 2000 and sold it nine years later for a reported £120m to Vitruvian Partners. The London private equity house its stake to GTCR last February.

GTCR, founded in 1980, specialises in financial services and technology, healthcare and information services and technology industries.

Callcredit has grown rapidly through UK lenders’ increased use of credit data and software and analytics tools, as well as emerging demand for credit data solutions and analytics in areas such as insurance and alternative lending.

The group’s services include real-time credit reporting and scoring, loan affordability assessments, customer account monitoring and management, identify verification and fraud protection.

It also helps businesses carry out more effective marketing campaigns and through its Noddle brand offers direct-to-consumer credit reports that allow individuals to monitor and improve their personal credit profiles.

Callcredit said pre-tax profits increased by 57 per cent last year to £27.3m.

Mr McAndrew said: “2013 was another very good year but I see the next five years as a very exciting time for us as a business and for our people under the ownership of GTCR our new investors, as we continue to grow and flourish, both at home and abroad.”

The group now has more than 1,000 employees across the UK and overseas. Mr McAndrew told The Yorkshire Post: “We are recruiting all the time. The challenge is it is tough to find technologists and analysts of good quality.

“We are looking now to take on 15-20 apprentices this year. If we can’t find them we are going to grow our own.”

He said Callcredit decided to launch a development centre in Lithuania because of the lack of good quality staff in the UK.

He said Lithuanian universities have been “extremely cooperative” with the group.

“We don’t get that in the UK,” he added.

Mr McAndrew said: “It is barking mad to have 20-25 per cent of people aged over 25 out of work and us not being able to find enough bright people to work in technology and analytics.”