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Transaction Services

Recurring payments technology and services

Opportunity

Calera spent several years developing a close relationship with TSG prior to our investment, during which time we developed a strong shared vision for how we could help the business:


  • Calera’s team had strong prior experience in the payments industry, and saw an opportunity to integrate TSG’s payments capabilities into additional H&F software platforms as well as across new verticals

  • Our team had also introduced TSG to a number of strategic acquisition targets outside of their core geographies, and TSG’s founder shared our belief that the Company could serve as a strong global consolidation platform within the integrated payments industry

Calera Supported Initiatives:

Calera supported TSG across a number of strategic initiatives to professionalize the platform, significantly increase the Company’s addressable market across multiples verticals and geographies, and established TSG as a strong and proven M&A platform capable of generating strong acquisition synergies:


  • Target Operating Model:  With Calera’s guidance, TSG management established shared centers of excellence and regional service hubs with consistent operating protocols across geographies and lines of business.

  • Market Expansion: During Calera’s investment period, TSG expanded from its core presence in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, to successfully serve 19 countries across four continents.  These new markets represented an 8-fold increase the Company’s addressable market size.

  • Vertical Expansion:  Calera helped identify several expansion markets that shared common success factors as TSG’s core H&F market.  TSG successfully entered the childcare market in Australia and was launching entry into the North American insurance segment as we transitioned ownership of the business, creating a transformative growth opportunity for the future owners of the business

  • Acquisitions:  Calera helped identify and execute three highly accretive and strategic acquisitions that both cemented TSG’s leadership position in the H&F market and accelerated the Company’s entrance into the childcare vertical.

  • Senior Management:  Calera worked closely with our partner, Murray Bolton, to upgrade TSG’s management team and infrastructure by hiring or promoting a new CEO, CFO, CIO, CMO, President of Europe, President of North America and key product and security executives.

Overall Results

Although the investment in F&I Sentinel remains active, the results have been significant, including:


  • TSG transformed from a collection of independently-operated, geographically disparate businesses to a single, cohesive global business capable of scaling across multiple new verticals and geographies.

  • Realized more than 400bps of EBITDA margin expansion
  • Significantly increased market share in each of the Company’s core geographies and verticals

  • Revenue and EBITDA grew by more than 25% and 35%, respectively, on an annualized basis

  • The strong historical performance, and significant runway to execute on the new market opportunities led to a sale of the business in June 2019 at a significant premium to the earnings multiple of our original investment
25% Annualized Revenue
Increase
35% Annualized EBITDA
Increase
8x Increase in Addressabel
Market Size

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