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Calculus sells stake in Metropolitan Safe Deposits to private investors

22 September 2016

The private equity fund manager, Calculus Capital, has sold its substantial minority stake in Metropolitan Safe Custody Limited, the UK’s leading independent safe deposit box business, to private investors.

Calculus acquired its stake in Metropolitan in February 2012 on behalf of its Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and VCT investor clients. The EIS specialist seeks capital appreciation from dynamic, established private UK companies across a multitude of sectors. Their preference is to invest between £2 million and £5 million per company with a view to exiting their investment after 3-5 years. Their investment in Metropolitan was highly profitable, having secured a return of 1.81x in cash terms for their funds and a return of over 2.5x for their underlying investors after taking into account income tax relief.

Metropolitan’s Chief Executive, Christopher Barrow, said “Calculus made a highly successful investment in Metropolitan and always intended to sell their interest within 3-5 years in order to maximise the net-of-tax return for their investors. Our business has grown and continues to grow rapidly as our well-established vaults in Knightsbridge and St John’s Wood benefit from increasing demand for our services and reduced competition from banks”.

Christopher Barrow, who led the acquisition of Metropolitan in 2007, confirmed that the shares held by Calculus were placed yesterday with both existing shareholders and new individual investors, all of whom were personal friends. He added that “the new investors, like the existing shareholders, have had extremely successful careers mainly in investment banking and investment management. We are fortunate to have a very talented shareholder group who will support our unchanged strategy of growing the long-term value of Metropolitan”.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

For more information contact:

Company Spokesman

Name Christopher Barrow, Group Chief Executive, Metropolitan Safe Deposits Limited
Email cb@metrosafe.co.uk 

Corporate Finance Advisor

Name Jonathan Lack, Partner, Intrinsica Partners Limited
Email jonathan.lack@intrinsicapartners.com