PE Deals

Equistone drives home majority stake in Nexus

Phoenix Equity Partners sold its majority stake, having first invested in the vehicle rental firm in 2018.

-
  • Nexus intends to launch other products in 2023 to meet the changing mobility needs of its customers
  • The financial terms of the deal were undisclosed
  • Andi Tomkinson, partner, Seb Leusch, investment director and Will Copeland, investment manager, oversaw the Equistone acquisition

Phoenix’s B2B vehicle rental aggregator platform Nexus has changed hands after Equistone bought the majority of its shares.

Nexus, based in Leeds, is a tech-driven business mobility provider with 550,000 vehicles across 2,000 locations. In 2022, the firm had more than 4 million rental reservations.

The management team, comprised of David Brennan, John Ellis and Alex Cook, will continue to oversee the operations. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Nexus plans to launch product innovations in 2023 to assist the shifting mobility requirements of its customer base. In addition to increasing its investments in Nexus Connect, a mobile application that aims to streamline the rental process for end-users while on the move, Nexus also expanded into the plant hire and taxi market.

The acquisition was led by Andi Tomkinson, partner, Seb Leusch, investment director, and Will Copeland, investment manager, who will now work together with the Nexus management team in the next phase.

“The business, led by an impressive management team, has navigated the challenges presented by the pandemic and the vehicle supply shortage admirably, demonstrating its resilience and its ability to provide a top-quality service to its customer base to whom vehicle supply is often ‘mission-critical’,” said Andi Tomkinson, partner at Equistone. “Equistone’s Manchester office has been tracking Nexus for a number of years and we’re excited to be partnering with the team in its next phase of growth.”

The deal follows Equistone taking a majority stake in BUKO Infrasupport and BUKO Waakt in January. The firms provide outsourced traffic and safety management systems in the Netherlands.

Equistone, headquartered in London, is an independent investment firm that invests between €25 million and €200 million in mid-market companies. It operates across Benelux, France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK.

Phoenix is private equity investor in medium sized UK companies. It is headquartered in London.