Close Brothers Private Equity funds £10m acquisition of Capital Incentives from Bank of Scotland

Close Brothers Private Equity is backing the management team buyout of Capital Incentives, the leading incentive and motivation company, from its owners Bank of Scotland in a £10m deal.

Capital Incentives produces a range of products and services for the incentive motivation industry. These include Capital Bonds, vouchers that are accepted in over 100 high street stores, and the Incentive Award Card, the only Visa card in the United Kingdom that can be used to make incentive, bonus and commission payments to staff or third parties, available to use in over 14 million Visa outlets worldwide. The company additionally creates and organises motivation schemes, particularly travel-based programmes.

Capital Incentives was founded in 1984 and in the year to February 2000 had turnover of £36.1m and profit before tax of £1.8m. CBPE has a 50% shareholding and the management has 50%.

Graham Povey, Managing Director of Capital Incentives, commented:
"Now that the sale has been completed, Capital Incentives is better placed to move more quickly both in meeting customers' needs and in developing the business. We are determined to grow the business rapidly to be among the UK's largest and most successful incentive and motivation agencies.

"The company is being bought by the team that has been playing the major part in developing and running the business for the last 15 years. We have a superb basis on which to build an even larger and more successful business and will be looking for every development opportunity."

Iain Slater of CBPE, who will join the board of Capital Incentives, commented:
"This is CBPE’s second investment in the North West in the past week. We are delighted to be backing a management team which, with its experience and innovative new products, will ensure that Capital Incentives continues to grow as a clear leader in the highly specialised incentive and motivation market."